Economy of the sport

The economy of the sport is a branch of the economy which studies the incidence of the Sport, amateur and professional, on the whole of the economy.

Unproductive activity which was the prerogative of an idle class a long time, the sport however belongs well today to economic reality. The high level athletic performance supposes heavy investments, authorized by the public authorities or the sponsors, but constitutes also a paying spectacle, and especially an advertizing medium. It has an economic impact in the economy and employment regional, in particular related on the building and public works (in 1997, the government contract of the installations and sports equipment accounted for 5,7% of the GDP French and 7,2% of total employment, which is considerable). On its side, the practice of leisure, expanding since the Seventies, involves the consumption of clothing and articles of sport, of services, commercial or not, of teaching and animation. Thus, to take only one example, the economic weight of the Sport in France was of 27,4 billion euros in 2003 ().

The economic dimension of the high level sport

The cartography of the sporting success indicates it enough: the performance of the sportsman of high-level competition is not that an individual adventure. Thus, Australia, from the point of view of the Olympic Games of Sydney, invested massively in the preparation of its sportsmen, in particular by discharging the trainers of the whole world. It spectacularly improved the performances of its athletes. “The sport is a crucible where intermingle with science, technology, the media, and for all to say, of the money and the economic power” written Claude Genzling. The sponsors try to associate their brand image with the success of a champion or a team, or with an event. That does not concern only the manufacturers of articles or sport clothing, stop watches or cars. Thus the sets of 1996 took place in Atlanta, the city of the head office of Coca-Cola ®. The sport indeed has a good audience with the Télévision and symbolizes the competitiveness and the dynamism of the company.

The sporting inflation of the rebroadcast rights is explained by the privatization of television channels whose financial capacity is strong, but also by the powerful impact of the advertisements during the retransmission of the sporting great events. In France, the case of Bouygues gives the example of a frightening vertical integration: the same group builds the stages and retransmet upstream the parts downstream. Source of prosperity for certain federations, television tends to treat on a hierarchical basis, but also to transform the sports according to its own constraints. Thus, TF1, notices Bénédicte Halba, offers less sporting spectacles than its competitors, but diffuses most important in terms of audience: the Football in particular. The American chains imposed the Tie-break so that the duration of a match of tennis does not exceed the “format” of the program.

Sporting consumption

The household expenses French related to the sport, except clothing, represent 23,9 billion in 1993, that is to say 7,4% (against 5,4% in 1960) of the global budget of the leisures. The sporting practice is however not foreign with the professional life, so much it constitutes a decisive argument of recruiting. David Breton the stresses that the physical practices form with the mode and the Cosmétique S a constellation of intended products to look after the image and to make of it a “alive calling card”.

The passive consumption, i.e. that which relates to the entries at the stage and the media, represents less quarter of this expenditure. Football has a dominating share there. It is a popular practice, inversely proportional to the incomes. From 1967 to 1987, the spectators going at least five times per annum at the stage passed from 16,5% of the population to 8,6%.

Active consumption, on the contrary, is expanding and is popularized. Its economic weight is largely underestimated because of the importance played by the voluntary offer of services, within non-profit-making associations. The resources of these last are before all the contributions of the members, but also sponsoring. One notes nevertheless a professionalisation of manpower of the clubs to associative structure and a rise of the commercial offer: in particular clubs of gymnastics, of musculation or back in shape, these sanctuaries of the worship of appearance and youth. The sporting job market accounts for 1,24% of employment in France, that is to say 296.500 employment (1997), including 203.000 uses of teaching and animation. 153.000 of this employment are of commercial nature.

Articles of sport

In France, the national production of articles of sport accounts for 0,24% from GDP, and consumption, 0,3%. The offer widens, in relation to new disciplines far away from the model of the competition: Surfing, Board with veil, Snowboard and rollers, inter alia.

Concerning the trio large company, research laboratory and champion, one speaks about “magic triangle”. Only a large firm would have financial means to develop, while investing massively in research and sporting sponsoring. Pascal Chantelat disputes this design while being based on the success of these new sports, heirs to the Californian Hédonisme of the years 1970. The breathlessness, relative from the Olympic model does not go hand in hand with a rejection of the articles of sport, nor of technology, on the condition of meeting the clean requirements of the “sport-leisure”: comfort and safety. There it on there a occasion that rather modest companies can sometimes seize, like, in France, the company Emery (Snowboard), repurchased however in 2000 by Rossignol.

Moreover, the large companies develop externalisation and subcontracting. Thus the name of the champion associated with that with the famous brand can be used as engine with a whole swarm the small ones and average industries (SME). SME which wants to internationalize itself to survive will have to thus engage in the technological innovation and, especially, to find a niche (for example, rackets with snow TSL), which facilitates the strong segmentation of the request, as well as the birth of new sporting practices: they are there two obstacles with the massification of the production and, consequently, with the horizontal integration. Lastly, the request fluctuates quickly and in an unforeseeable way, a little as that occurs in industry from the mode. One includes/understands whereas the large companies concentrate their efforts on a small number of sports very popular and mediatized, or on transverse products, like the shoe and clothing. There is however for SME an other side of the coin: the fashion can be blown as quickly as it appeared, as shows it the case of the Skateboard, supplanted by the rollers, without speaking about the Trottinette.

See too

Sport
Principal marks of Articles of sport.

Random links: