Climate shocks threaten $2.3 trillion global sports economy, study warns

MILAN, Feb 25 : Extreme weather threatens annual revenue growth in the $2.3 trillion sports economy, where expansion is driven mainly by tourism tied to resource-depleting global events such as the just-concluded Milano Cortina Games, a report has shown.

The sector's growth should be used to maximise social benefits such as reducing public healthcare spending and advancing gender equality.

That entails tackling the threat the industry faces from climate change and nature loss - which it risks exacerbating through its own footprint, said Tony Simpson, partner and global sports industry lead at consultancy Oliver Wyman, the report's authors.

"Sports has more power than any other sector to drive behaviour because it sees itself as a community asset. And if you're a community asset, you need to act as one," he told Reuters.

Elite sports' $140  billion slice of the industry is dwarfed by sports tourism worth $672 billion and a sporting goods sector with annual turnover of $612 billion, the report prepared for the World Economic Forum showed.

The fastest-expanding segment of the overall tourism industry, sports tourism is forecast to account for 60 per cent of total sports economy revenue increase until 2030. 

Participatory sports and sports-driven revenues in sectors such as broadcasting, nutrition, wearable technologies complete the picture of an economy which the report said is set to grow to $3.7 trillion by 2030 and $8.8 trillion by 2050.

For the report, Oliver Wyman analysts gathered and cross-checked data from organisations including major leagues, investors, sponsors and the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry, Simpson said, adding the project required more than 5,000 hours of work.

"By showing how large the sports