Measuring the Economic Impact of COVID-19 on the UK’s Leisure and Sport during the 2020 Lockdown

Themis Kokolakakis, Fernando Lera-Lopez and Girish Ramchandani
Additional contact information
Themis Kokolakakis: Sport Industry Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK
Fernando Lera-Lopez: Department of Economics, Public University of Navarra, 31006 Pamplona, Spain
Girish Ramchandani: Sport Industry Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: This research evaluates the effect of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic on sport Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and consumer expenditure in the leisure sector in the United Kingdom (UK). The leisure sector is divided into leisure at home and away from home, examining in this way the different patterns that emerged because of the national lockdown in 2020. The effect on sport GDP is examined using the Office for National Statistics (ONS) surveys and the UK Sport Satellite Account (SSA). The study found that, because of its reliance on human contact, sport GDP is likely to decline by more than twice the rate of the overall economy. Furthermore, this finding is consistent with the 2020 consumer expenditure on leisure that shows increases in spending on home leisure but also a huge decline in spending on out-of-home entertainment. The decline in GDP is extremely likely to put pressure on profit margins and hence threaten the survival of private enterprises, raising issues of sustainability under conditions of a pandemic. Increases in long-term public funding for reducing sport inequalities should be considered along with short-term relief packages for the sport sector. Additional policy suggestions are offered to address these issues.

Keywords: COVID-19; sport; Sport Satellite Accounts; consumer spending; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13865/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13865/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:24:p:13865-:d:703091

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().