“Around every 47th Euro and every 37th employee in the EU are directly sport-related”
The European Commission released its second study on the Economic impact of sport through sport satellite accounts. The study aims at assessing the sport sector’s macroeconomic importance in the EU, in particular its growth and employment potential. It demonstrates the fast-growing importance of sport sector in national economies. The analysis uses 2012 data and updates the original study published in 2012 which was based on 2005 data. The study can serve as a basis for sport organisations to showcase the benefits of investing money in the sport sector, including towards public authorities.
According to the conclusions of the study, the share of sport-related Gross Domestic Product within the EU is 2.12 % and amounts to € 279.7 bn. Furthermore, the share of sport-related employment amounts to 2.72 % of total EU employment, equivalent to 5,666,195 persons. Despite the economic and financial crisis between the two studies (data from 2005 and from 2012), the sport sector has continued to grow.
The researchers explain in the study that “Sport is an employment-intensive economic activity, therefore generating a greater sport share in employment than in GDP. In fact, an increase of GDP by 1 % goes hand in hand with an additional 1.35 % of employment”. Furthermore, as regard to GDP, statistics show that education services and sport services (sport facility operations, sport clubs, fitness facilities, and other sport services) are the two main sport-related GDP contributors, respectively 0.39 % (€ 51,237million) and 0.33 % (€ 43,075 million) of the EU’s GDP. Countries which economically benefit the most from sport are Austria, Germany, Poland and France.
The third part of the study analyses the economic effects and characteristics of sport in each EU Member State. Those data can be used by national sport organisations to stress the importance of sport in each country providing reliable figures on sport and sport industry’s contribution for example to employment and GDP.
More general comments are also made on the technical support to Belgium in their effort to create Sport Satellite Accounts (SSA) and recommendations towards a European SSA are also included.
The EOC EU Office considers the study as very useful and hopes that sport organisations will make great use of it along their discussions with public authorities to advocate for the added value of funding the sport sector. The timing of this publication seems ideal, just before the negotiations between the EU institutions on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, which should include sport in several funding programmes.
The EOC EU Office is actively working for the EU institutions to take the existing evidence on the crucial role of sport as a driver for growth, employment and skills development, as well as for social cohesion into account in national and regional policy making.
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