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Wimbledon 2022: Exploring Where has the Highest Tennis Provision in the UK?

28th June 2022

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LeisureVision Points is a competitively price dataset of over 250,000+ leisure locations across the UK. Points is a comprehensive dataset of locations across 4 product types including Food & Beverage (F&B), Entertainment, Competitive Socialising and Sport & Fitness. Each Point is also assigned to one of over 100+ categories. The attributes associated with each point are: Name, Brand, Location, Product & Category.
Yesterday was the first day of Wimbledon 2022! Every year, Wimbledon inspires many newcomers to the sport, and for others to dust off their tennis rackets and get back out on the court. To celebrate the start of the 14-day tournament, we have done some location analysis of the UK Tennis Courts using our LeisureVision location data in our MVPLUS location intelligence software to determine where is the Tennis hotspot in the UK.

In Figure 1 is a map of the Tennis Courts in relation to Population, by Postcode Area. Redhill, in the South East, has the highest number of tennis courts per person. This is followed by Galashiels, Guildford, Cambridge, Tunbridge Wells and Oxford. In these areas, any Wimbledon fans that are looking to get out on the court will have the best opportunity for access.
Figure 1: Tennis Provision (Tennis Courts by Population) by Postcode Area in the UK
With exception of Galashiels, which has the 2nd highest number of tennis courts by population, the Postcode Areas with the highest tennis provision are in the South East on the periphery of London. This is shown in Figure 2. 
Figure 2: Tennis Provision (Tennis Courts by Population) by Postcode Area in the UK, London & the South East
The London SW Postcode Area, in which Wimbledon is located, ranked 35th out of 124 for tennis provision. This is likely caused by the large population in this area, which is over 875,000. When only to taking into account the number of tennis courts, London SW ranked 14th. 

Tennis is often associated with affluence, partially due to the membership costs of tennis clubs. Using the CAMEO geodemographic dataset, we have looked at the portion of the population in each of the CAMEO Groups in these areas to see how access to tennis provision correlates with wealth. CAMEO generally depicts an order of wealth, with 01 having the highest affluence with 10 having the lowest. Figure 3 shows the population % in CAMEO Groups 01 to 03, and Figure 4 shows the population % in CAMEO Groups 08 to 10.  
Figure 3: % of Population in 01, 02 & 03 CAMEO Groups
Figure 4: % of Population in 08, 09 & 10 CAMEO Groups
Looking closer at the top areas with tennis provision in the South East, 44% and 45% of the Redhill and Guildford populations were in the 01 to 03 CAMEO Groups. This compared to an average of 23% for all Postcode Areas in the UK. Cambridge, Tunbridge Wells and Oxford had 28%, 32% and 36% of their populations in these CAMEO groups. Of the top areas in the South East had a population rate for the lowest three CAMEO groups, 08 to 10, under 19%. This reiterates how these areas, with such high tennis provision, have a more affluent population. 

Motherwell, Wigan, Liverpool, Oldham and London Eastern Central are the areas with lowest tennis provision in the country. Looking at the CAMEO data, this emphasised the wealth disparity that could be linked with tennis provision. Except for London Eastern Central, all these areas had a below average population rate of the 01 to 03 CAMEO Groups. Wigan, Oldham and Liverpool had respective 01 to 03 population rate of 5%, 6% and 10%, whilst Motherwell had 20%. Whereas they had high populations of the bottom three CAMEO Groups 08 to 10, with Wigan, Oldham and Liverpool having 51%, 61%, and 56% of their populations in these CAMEO Groups. 

Our initial location analysis suggests that tennis does indeed correlate with wealth, and the spatial correlation between tennis provision and affluence reiterates that there is perhaps a north south divide to tennis. This could be due to private schools having better tennis provision, as well as exclusivity around tennis clubs and high membership costs excluding the less affluent portion of society. 

We hope that this years Wimbledon can inspire those from all backgrounds to get out on the court! And to of course enjoy your strawberries and cream, even if you haven’t been lucky enough to get tickets to this year’s tournament. 

Get In Touch
To find out more about our LeisureVision location data or our MVPLUS location analytics software, get in touch at info@gmap.com.
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