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How much is Italian sport worth? How much wealth does it produce in terms of the industrial sector? And what social benefits is it capable of generating? The “Sport Report 2023” attempts to answer these questions, the first systemic research on the Italian sports industry promoted by the Institute for Sports Credit and Sport and Health. The GDP of Sport in 2022 is quantified at approximately 22 billion euros, with a contribution to the national GDP of 1.3 percent, which translates in employment terms into 400 thousand workers, thanks to the presence of over 15 thousand private companies, approximately 82 thousand non-profit organizations and almost 900 thousand volunteers.
The sports industry
The core segment, i.e. the management of facilities, sports clubs, gyms and other activities (such as the promotion of sporting events), contributes 3.4 billion to the added value of the sector, of which 79% is generated by businesses private, compared to a share of 21% attributable to public administrations and private non-profit institutions. Over 10 billion of Sport’s GDP comes from closely related activities – such as the production and sale of sports equipment and clothing – and another 8.4 billion from sectors connected to sport in the broad sense (such as sports media, tourism, transport services and medical ones). 84% of the market value therefore derives from the related activities activated, confirming the multiplicative capacity of the sports business.
The elements of weakness
The 2023 Sport Report also offers a reflection on the elements of weakness of the sports system, highlighted by the pandemic and the energy crisis triggered by the war between Russia and Ukraine. Covid has “burned” almost 4 billion of GDP, marking a drastic collapse of investments (-76% in 2020, with a partial recovery in 2021), while the energy crisis has compromised the financial balance of many structures, heavily penalized by the increase in electricity and gas bills which, at the peaks of prices, they came to account for up to 45% of total fixed costs.
«The mark left by the pandemic and the impact of energy shocks connected to international geopolitical tensions – underlines the report – put public institutions and the sports system faced with the need to start a phase of restructuring and renewal of the market through three main lines of intervention: investments, sports culture and entrepreneurship, with the aim of enhancing the great potential for social and economic impact of sport”.
The facilities
Among the unresolved problems is the infrastructural one with the continuing gap between north and south. In fact, only 26% of the national plants are located in the South, while 44% of the country’s total was built in the 70s and 80s, largely inefficient in terms of economic and environmental sustainability. environmental. 8% of the plants are not functioning, a figure which in some areas of the South reaches 20%. The main challenge is to make the sports infrastructure network more efficient and widespread, intercepting the megatrends linked to the green and digital transition and assigning intervention priorities to the areas of Southern Italy.