Sport as a Business: Introduction

Harald Dolles and Sten Söderman

A chapter in Sport as a Business, 2011, pp 1-12 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The role of sport is concrete in business terms, quotes Eric Falt, United Nations (UN) Director of Communications (2004): It is an industry with unparalleled global reach and power. Globally, sport-related turn-over amounts to three per cent of world total economic activity. In the United Kingdom, for example, sport-related turn-over equals that of the automotive and food industries. Major events such as the soccer World Cup or Formula One Grand Prix are watched around the world. … At the same time, the corporate practices of this worldwide industry can and do have widespread impact, socially and environmentally. Some sports have achieved a global status; there are more members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) than of the UN. Football (or ‘soccer’ as it is known in America) is a growth sport; however, its commercial representation can only be considered strong in certain world regions. For example, in 2009, the German Bundesliga overtook the English Premier League to be ranked as the world’s most profitable football league, stacking up €172 million of operating profits, whilst the Premier League more than halved their revenues from €224 million to €96 million in the same year.1 In total, the big five European football leagues (England’s Premier League, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s La Liga and France’s Ligue 1) generated revenues of €7,900 million in 2008/09 (€6,300 million in 2004/05 (Jones, Parkes and Houlihan, 2006)).2

Keywords: Olympic Game; Sport Organization; International Olympic Committee; Sport Facility; Premier League (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:pal:palchp:978-0-230-30663-9_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230306639

DOI: 10.1057/9780230306639_1

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().