The Current State of Social Exercise
1 | Lack of intuitive design on websites
Let’s start simple: booking should be easy. But for many sports bookings in the UK it isn’t. One survey by Sport England found only 34% of adults say it’s easy to book a sport or fitness class online, compared to 68% saying it’s easy to order a takeaway. If it’s harder to book your 5-a-side than to order a pizza, that’s a problem. Poor design means people drop out before even starting.
What the NBRH is doing:
We’ve stripped everything back. Our interface is clean, mobile-first, and fast — no downloads, no faff. You find a session, see the vibe, and book in seconds. Think less “form-filling” and more “tap and go.”
2 | No centralised info hubs for clubs
Finding a session often feels like detective work. Every club has its own site, social media page or spreadsheet. There’s no reliable ‘go-to’ for what’s on, when and where. In fact, the initiative OpenActive explored publishing data about sessions more openly and found that better data access could generate “up to £20 million in increased productivity every year” by making it easier for people to find and take part in activities. So the lack of centralised info isn’t just inconvenient, it’s economically costly.
What the NBRH is doing:
We’re building a living map of London’s social sport, pulling verified sessions, classes, and events into one organised platform. No more hopping between 10 tabs. Everything from badminton in Brixton to park runs in Camden, all in one place.
3 | Lack of control on current platforms
Organisers and clubs often face the opposite problem: when they do use platforms, they’re not always in control. Pricing, communication, data—they don’t always own it. Many become listings in someone else’s system.
Plus, the broader sector is still behind on digital maturity: according to the latest digital maturity survey, the average score among UK sport/leisure organisations is only 51% (making them “Digital Experimenters”). That’s a polite way of saying: you’ve got a website and a booking form, but you’re not yet making it seamless or strategic.
What the NBRH is doing:
We give clubs ownership. They control pricing, communication, and listings. We’re not middlemen — we’re infrastructure. The club’s audience stays theirs, with analytics and insights they can actually use.
4 | Lack of social proof for sessions
Would you join a class you’ve never seen? Probably not. Reviews, visuals, clear session info—these are often missing. And when you don’t know the coach, the crowd or the vibe, you play safe by sticking to what you know. That means smaller or newer sessions struggle to get traction, even if they’re great. Without proof or trust, they lose potential participants before they begin.
What the NBRH is doing:
Each session has a NBRH rating (based on how good we think it is) and has a User rating (based on how good people think it is). Club pages have testimonials, FAQs, contact details etc. Everything you could need to make you feel more secure in booking a session you will actually like.
5 | Lack of visibility for more niche sports
London’s got hundreds of niche sports — spikeball, roller-derby, urban climbing, you name it. But most booking platforms and algorithms favour the mainstream. The result: niche = invisible. When discoverability is low, those sessions are harder to fill, harder to sustain, and harder for newcomers to try. Which means the variety that makes London’s scene exciting gets squeezed out.
What the NBRH is doing:
We champion variety. Niche sports sit shoulder-to-shoulder with mainstream ones in our search filters. We highlight underrated sessions on the and we’re building discovery tools that surface “hidden gems” based on your vibe, not your algorithmic past.
6 | Lack of tools to build communities
Sport isn’t just about transaction: it’s about the social, the team, the connection. But many current tools treat it as a booking + pay model. Few have built-in features to nurture community, retention, referrals, group chat, alumni networks.
Clubs that do have strong community often rely on WhatsApp groups or manual workarounds. That’s fine for small scale, but doesn’t scale cleanly.
What the NBRH is doing:
Via our Club House store, we can set up club subscriptions for recurring revenue, members only pages, custom merchandise, custom donation links, centralise all of your contact details + social media platforms, create special perks for your members etc. We have the tools to help grow your community.
7 | Too many platforms to use
From ClassPass and Meetup, to Eventbrite, Facebook Events, Sportas, bespoke club booking systems—users and clubs often juggle four or five (or more) platforms. For the user: choice overload and switching costs. For the club: fragmented data, mixed messages, inconsistent user experience. While more options might sound good, the real effect is confusion.
What the NBRH is doing:
We use a combination of AI automation, manual curation and club submission to deliver new sessions to our NBRH frequently. Ensuring that we are pulling for multiple source accurately and saving you the hassle of searching endlessly.
Why this matters
London doesn't have a participation problem — it has a coordination problem. People want to play. Clubs want to grow. But the infrastructure hasn't kept up with how we live. The NBRH is changing that — not by reinventing sport, but by fixing how it's organised, shared, and experienced. Because when finding a game becomes as easy as finding a pint, the whole city wins.
