This theme may be examined from the twin angles of the contribution of sport to development and the impact of the level of development on the promotion of sport. Various studies and research papers have highlighted the considerable advantages to be derived from the regular and moderate practise of sport as an integral component of one’s lifestyle: improved health, less absenteeism and fewer accidents at work, better social integration, and a greater variety of recreational opportunities for the individual and the family. Studies in Canada have shown the measurable economic impact of sporting activities for all on health spending. The marketing of sports items and using sport to sell other types of goods, in particular through publicity and sponsorship, is an important and steadily growing phenomenon. Sport is both a consumer good and a consumer of goods. Numerous recent studies attest to the rapid development of the sports economy as an independent branch of economics, and have highlighted the amount of turnover generated by sport: the building of infrastructures, the manufacture of capital and consumer goods, the provision of services, the dissemination of information, revenue from sports events, advertising expenditure and sponsorship budgets. Several years ago, some countries conducted a number of highly instructive studies. In the United Kingdom, for example, the total amount of resources provided by sport to the State is four times greater than expenditure on sport in the budget. A study in the Netherlands to evaluate the impact of sport on the economy showed that the elimination of sporting activities would lead to the loss of 300,000 jobs and a drop in domestic consumption of 5 billion guilders. In France in 1980, the Federation of Sports Equipment Industries comprised 6,482 businesses employing some 300,000 persons. In general, it is estimated that the sports economy is worth between 1 and 2 per cent of GNP in various countries, and is tending to grow faster than most other sectors. At the same time, this economy is becoming increasingly international, claiming a growing share of world trade. Furthermore, it should be noted that such figures do not take into account the very considerable contribution of countless volunteers active at all organizational levels of sport. With regard to the funding of physical and sporting activities, attention should be drawn to the low level of resources available in the least developed countries, and to the tendency of public authorities in numerous countries, including many industrialized countries, to cut their sports budgets and place greater reliance on extrabudgetary types of funding: lotteries and betting on sport. Ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to engage regularly in physical and sporting activities must be seen as an integral part of development. Some would even claim that the close relationship and growing interdependence between sport and development is in fact a form of symbiosis. While this relationship may indeed be symbiotic, it is no doubt dialectical in the sense that numerous interactions and reciprocal influences may be observed between the development of sport and economic and socio-cultural development. As an illustration of such interaction, experiments have been carried out in some industrialized countries seeking to link the promotion of sport to the development of rural areas. Experience shows that by promoting physical and sporting activities in the countryside, often in tandem with other cultural, social or touristic activities, the rural environment may once again become a setting of hospitality. In this way, the practise of physical and sporting activities promotes the development of open-air sites, the building and maintenance of neighbourhood, municipal or district facilities, the provision of services, and the creation of part-time and full-time jobs. As demonstrated by a study published several years ago, the underdevelopment of sport is both an aspect and a consequence of economic underdevelopment. The consequence of underdevelopment in sport is a "brawn drain". Given that developing countries have an overriding obligation to meet the basic needs of their populations, ought top-class sport be included in that category? Are there not more urgent and pressing priorities? Does it make economic sense for those countries to pour money into spectator sport? Whenever these questions have been raised they have prompted fairly sharp exchanges. As a general rule, however, it is recognized that sport, and more especially top-class sport, is expensive, and that its cost tends to rise faster than the number of players or athletes. With the internationalization of the media, spectator sport, a modern form of entertainment, has become one of the main forms of mass communication, helping to shape world public opinion, and as such is now a key issue. This issue can only be analyzed by taking into account the complex relationship between sport, the media and multinational companies. The debate on this point reveals two types of logic: the one purely commercial, and the other political in nature. Quite likely it is non-commercial considerations that prompt the leaders of increasingly numerous countries to dream of hosting the Olympics. More and more voices are being raised to urge limits to the gigantic and sophisticated nature of the facilities and equipment, in favour of more systematic decentralization of major events and a more balanced representation of specialists from developing countries in international sports bodies. In short, it might be worthwhile to restate the following considerations in order to better understand the potential contributions of physical education and sport to economic development in its various aspects: enhanced quality and performance from the workforce and the sports media and industries, and the use, development and protection of the environment (open-air sites, renovation of sites). It can thus be seen that support for physical education and sport is a sound investment and must be treated as such by economic decision-makers.
Publication Year	2003-07-16 9:40 am

Theme III