The sports sector weighs 64,000 million euros, or 2.6% of French GDP, according to an estimate by the mutual banking group BPCE, which highlights the role of “essential” financier of local authorities while warning about the “inflationary shock ” that affects the sector .
“The sports sector is an economic sector in its own right in our country” but “today it is not sufficiently considered as such, like agri-food or luxury”, estimated Thursday Benoît Gausseron, director of the Olympic and Paralympic Games of Paris 2024. Group Games – which is one of the “premium” partners of the Olympic Games.
The weight of sport is estimated at 2.6% of French GDP, a valid figure “for the year 2019 because we wanted to make an independent evaluation of the two years marked by the crisis” of the Covid, specified Alain Tourdjman, director of studies and forecasts of the BPCE, during a press conference on the occasion of the publication of the third BPCE Sports Economics Observatory.
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“It is substantial, it is as much as the economic weight of the hotel and restaurant sector,” says Julien Laugier, economist at the banking group.
Of a total GDP of 64,000 million euros, 52,700 million are contributed by household consumption (purchase of sports equipment, subscriptions to sports halls, sports betting, ticket sales for sporting events, school sports, associative practice, etc.) , and 12,000 million come from investments by companies, the public sector and associations.
BPCE reports a network of 128,500 private sports companies (excluding associations): the vast majority are micro-enterprises (teaching, training, rental and sale of equipment, etc.) that barely generate 10% of the total turnover of the business, the rest being production by 3,500 larger structures (commerce, manufacturing, etc.).
Le groupe bancaire met également en avant “le rôle fundamentale” joué par les collectivités territoriales dans le sport, dont les dépenses sont “près de deux fois supérieures à celles de l’Etat” et qui sont propriétaires de 81% de équipements sportifs recensés sur the territory.
But after the health crisis linked to Covid, the sports sector is also affected by “an inflationary shock”: in a full year, “local entities could face a 12% increase in their sports spending, or 1,500 million euros, more than half of which could be attributed to the rise in energy prices”, summarizes BPCE.
Source: BFM TV
