Sport. Ranked by Global Sports Insights as the ninth largest industry on earth, it is an economic powerhouse that encompasses various sectors. These sectors range from media and marketing to merchandise and apparel sales, and that’s before you talk about the athletes, teams and organisations themselves.
If you were to ask every young child what they want to be when they’re older, you could safely assume that many would say some form of athlete. This can help us understand the size of the market when it comes to the global sports industry, and the reach it has. With the industry revenues at $2.65 trillion according to the Best-Howard model, nearly everyone has a link to sport.
This is because of the number of ways people can be involved in sports. Outlined in How Big is the Sports Industry report from The Business of Sports, there are three domains which the industry makes money from, which are fan engagement, sports products, and sports participation. Taking one area of the sports participation domain as an example, worldwide spending on sports health alone (which includes sports medicine, nutrition, sports therapy, etc) surpassed $130 billion in 2023.
The industry is also an extremely fast-growing one. In 2019, the global revenue in the same model was estimated at $2.3 trillion, meaning there was a growth of $338 billion in just four years. More specifically, the fan engagement domain grew the most, by 6.4%, in this period. This can be partly accredited to the globalisation of sport, with athletes and teams being followed all over the world. For example, the Premier League is shown in 188 countries worldwide, and more people watch the NBA in China than any other country outside the USA.
According to the Country Sports Score index, the USA is the biggest sports country in the world, a nation with 193 professional sports teams. England is fourth in the rankings, and Australia is 8th. This is further broken down into cities, with New York, Tokyo, and Los Angeles being the top three. London is fourth, and behind only Buenos Aires when it comes to professional sports teams in the city, with 55.
But aside from its economic size, the sports industry also has huge social impacts. The most researched of these is the physical and mental health benefits of sports participation, which, according to a UK government report, helps save money on healthcare costs. According to the same report, sports participation improves pro-social behaviour and reduces crime. These impacts all contribute to why sport is so popular, and it becomes no surprise that it is the ninth largest global industry.
Article by Zak Anani
