ABSTRACT
Numerous economic models exist to try and calculate how much sport is worth. According to a study carried out in 2011 by management consulting firm A. T. Kearney, the global sports industry is worth an estimated €450 billion. With an overall growth rate of nearly 5% per year, the sports market, or should we say markets, are looking very healthy, attracting attention from the financial sector and offering numerous job opportunities. Students, universities, management schools, companies, sponsors, local authorities, manufacturers, distributors, agencies, event organizers are just some of the very diverse actors interested in sport, though sometimes with very different strategies and objectives. Sport economists have been arguing for decades that the numbers are generally underestimated, because in every country, the statistics only take the narrowest definition of the sports sector into account. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
