Canberra's most popular club sport is soccer, research from the Australian Sports Commission has revealed.

The commission's study also showed the ACT is Australia's sportiest state or territory. About 85 per cent of adults in Canberra played club sport at least once per week, the highest rate of participation of all the states and territories.

The national rate of participation per week was 79 per cent.

The most popular club sports for adults in Canberra were, in order of popularity, soccer, golf, cricket, hockey and squash. For children, it was football, swimming, athletics, rugby league and tennis.

Hospitality worker and after school carer Jake Whyte, 23, plays cricket for the Via Braidwood Monks every second Sunday in summer. A former member lived on the way to Braidwood, hence the "via Braidwood". The "monks" is a group nickname carried over from high school.

The Monks play in an eight-team competition divided by north and south Canberra. On January 22, a 32 degree and cloudless Sunday, the Monks lined up against the Ferrets United Cricket Club, a team established in 1972 and based in Tuggeranong, at the Narrabundah cricket ground.

Mr Whyte said the Monks had stayed close through sport, and it was the people that kept him playing each summer.

"Just the camaraderie between the boys, you know. It's such a good time. We're all pretty big cricket fans and things like that, [but] it's more so the stuff you get with the boys, and the fun you have playing it," he said. "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's always a good day."

Part of the fun might be some of the team's rules, which were outside cricket's usual scope. A dropped catch, for example, ensures the enforcement of a "shoey" - any remaining beer must be consumed via the player's shoe.

Much of the group also play for the Tuggeranong Hawks, an Australian rules football club, and Mr Whyte wore on Sunday a Monks top, sponsored by The Dock in Kingston, and Hawks training shorts.

ACT children were also among Australia's sportiest, the study showed. In both the ACT and the Northern Territory, 56 per cent of children played a club sport once a week, compared to the national average of 54 per cent.

For children nationally, football was overwhelmingly the most popular sport, topping the national lists as well as the lists in WA, NT, Queensland, NSW, the ACT and Tasmania. For adults nationally, golf was the chosen club sport followed by football, tennis, cricket and netball.

Information for the commission's study was gathered from 20,000 adults, aged 15 and over, and 3,800 children, aged 0 to 14, over the period October 2015 to September 2016.