Travel distances in amateur football and handball in Germany

Background: Humanity faces dual existential crises of biodiversity loss and global warming. Acknowledging the environmental impact of sports, the United Nations calls for the sports sector to lead in fighting climate change and adopting climate-neutral practices. To this point, research on greenhouse gas emissions of amateur league play remains scarce. Methods Travel distances for the 2022/23 season of play for 339 football and handball amateur teams playing in different leagues in Bavaria were calculated. The program Gurobi was utilised to optimise how teams are placed in groups in order to allow for shorter travel distances. Results The study showed that playing in a higher amateur league resulted most often in longer travel distances in both sports for women’s and men’s leagues. Some amateur teams had to travel up to 2,958 kilometres for one season of play. Optimising in which groups teams play reduces overall travel distances by up to 19.7%. Conclusions Our findings indicate that travel distances in amateur football and handball, though smaller than those of professional teams, are still significant. Given the larger number of amateur teams and the imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is crucial to explore ways of reducing travel in amateur sports. Optimising how teams are placed in groups could be an initial step towards a substantial reduction in travel emissions from amateur sports.