Unit 3

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The Sports Industry


The development of Tennis

Tennis is a the 5th most popular sport within the UK, at least 2% of adults participate in this sport on a regular basis.

Over the eight centuries before modern tennis was invented there was only one game called Tennis. As the popularity of the modern game increased, there had to be a name to distinguish ‘old tennis’ from modern tennis. Real Tennis is the name in the UK, Court Tennis in the USA, and Royal Tennis in Australia.

The game originated in France sometime in the 12th century and was referred to in ecclesiastical manuscripts as "jes de paume," the game of the palm, played with the bare hand. As early as the 12th century, a glove was used to protect the hand. Starting in the 16th century and continuing until the middle of the 18th century, rackets of varying shapes and sizes were used. Around 1750, the present configuration of lopsided head, thick gut, and longer handle were used. The shape of the racket enabled the player to scoop balls out of the corners (walls and floor were considered in-bounds) and also to put ‘cut’ or ‘spin’ on the ball. Royalty and the very wealthy mainly played the game.

The oldest Real Tennis court is located at Hampton Court Palace, originally built by King Henry VIII at about 1530. A Real Tennis court has a very different appearance from that of a modern tennis court. The surface of the court is stone, surrounded by four high walls and covered by a sloping roof. The net droops in the centre to 3 feet, and stands at 5 feet high at either end. The net was originally a simple cord made more easily seen by the addition of tassels.

The Development of Rugby Union

Rugby is played in more than 100 counties and the IRB membership currently en compasses 94 national unions and five Regional Associations.

The International Rugby Board (IRB) in Dublin, Ireland, is the World Governing and Law-making body for the Game of Rugby Union. The Board was founded in 1886.

The Executive Council of the IRB, which meets twice a year, has a membership of 22 with two seats held by each of the eight foundation Unions, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, Australia, New-Zealand, South Africa and France. Argentina, Canada, Italy, Japan each have one seat on the council as does FIRA-AER. The full membership meets at a General Meeting, currently convened every two years. Regional meetings are held at  regular intervals.


This unit is about the Sports Industry and in it I will be examining two sports and their industries. The Sports I will be examining are Rugby and Tennis. Above I have given a brief introduction into how these games have come about. The examining factors of the industries will be:

  • The Scale of Economic Importance
  • Organisation and Funding of the sport
  • The Importance of each sports to the mass-media
  • The ways in which the mass media have influenced the sport
  • Major Trends

After all of this I will be able to conclude which sport contribute overall to the Industry and what can be done to improve the other sports strategy to better compete.

Scale of Economic Importance

A considerable proportion of the UK’s economy takes part in or watches a sport; this in turn creates considerable economic activity. In this part of my portfolio I will be illustrating the scale of sport, its contribution to the economy and how the industry has been and is influenced by the trends and fashions. I will begin with the identification of topics I will be investigating:

  1. Economic contributions; Consumer Spending
  2. Workforce figures
  3. Participation figures and trends
  4. Trends

After the investigation of these topics it will be clear what the economic contribution and effect my chosen sports are making or having on the British economy.

Economic Contribution; Consumer Spending

Major portions of people take part in or watch sports in their free time; this in turn creates considerable economic activity; due to various fees and sales. According to several Surveys consumer expenditure has grown between 1985 – 1995 by some 30%, as shown below:

LIRC

According to the chart above which I obtained from the LIRC, the main reason for the growth of consumer spending in sports is; subscription fees, sports clothing and sports footwear. These three all became hot items for companies to produce and sell, as we can see all of these item doubled in value in 10 years that is an overall growth of 10% a year which in its self is a substantial growth.

The Subscription fees growth is a combination of a few items such as increased subscription requests and prices increase. The Clothing sales increase is also a combination of items such as price increase and increased advertising in the industry by sports modelling. The Footwear increase similarly to Clothing sales is the same as this is also highly modelled by sports stars such as the ‘Nike adverts’.

Above I have given total expenditures of all sporting industries, this may not reflect exact prices and incomes but is a fairly good account. To specify sales for individual sports is difficult as shops that sell the equipment sell all sorts of equipment, as these shops are profit orientated and need to hence keep afloat by as many means necessary.

These figures, however, may underestimate the real economic significances of sport, they do not take into account sporting events, sports tourism and the voluntary sector in sport. this is also not taking into account the international market and its spent money. If this were true than the cash flow would be fluctuating on an annual basis.

There is great opportunities in the Sports television industry, since the early days of radio people would huddle around the radio to listen to the local sports news and results and now TV is the new big thing, the fact is that people will pay up to £30 a month to see live games and hear the latest information about sports, this gives great opportunities for businessmen to open channels and pay for TV rights.

Workforce Figures

There is a wide range of jobs available in the sports industry throughout the public, private and voluntary sectors. The Public sector is where the organisation is present to serve the community rather than to make a profit opposite to Private. Private sector companies are out to make a profit unlike voluntary. The organisations in the Voluntary sector are run for specific needs not particularly out to make a profit but need to make ends meet. According to the LIRC total employment in sports recorded was in 1985 324,470 and in 1995 was 415,000 this is an increase of 90,530. This accounts for 1.61% of the total employed workforce in the UK in 1995, this is an increase of 0.09% from 1985 where the sports industries workforce was 1.52%.

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The above statistics as implied are of paid workforce but; a usually unseen workforce lies beneath this figure, uncounted.  This is the unpaid or otherwise known as the voluntary workforce is also in place. This improves the significance of the sports industry if we count the value of this workforce. The voluntary workforce in 1999 was valued at a whopping £15,555,000,000, this if paid would contribute 15% to the British economy resources associated with sport. This makes the voluntary sector a massive industry if paid £8.31 per hour worked, total voluntary hours account at 187,190,007.

Here I will ...

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