Playing together or bowling alone? Social capital-related attitudes of sports club members and non-members in Germany in 2001 and 2018

The paper focuses on social capital-related attitudes of members of local civic organisations, particularly of sports club members. In line with Robert Putnam’s social capital argument, three questions are addressed: (1) Do social capital-related attitudes differ between sports club members and those among the German population who do not belong to a voluntary association? (2) Following a typology of associations, the question arises to what extent social capital-related attitudes vary between members of sports clubs and members of other voluntary associations? (3) And finally, are there differences in social capital-related attitudes of sports club members between 2001 and 2017/2018? Based on representative survey data from Germany collected in 2001 and 2017/2018, the analyses buttress some, but not all of the initial assumptions: in 2001 sports club members expressed more sociable orientations and lower levels of individualism compared to non-members. In 2017/2018, however, these effects had weakened or vanished. Hardly any clues can be found in support of the notion that sports club members are ‘better democrats’ than non-members. These results are discussed against the backdrop of alleged tendencies of professionalisation and consumer-orientation in sports clubs and raise the question if the social capital-producing capacity of sports clubs has eventually attenuated.