27 Nov 2024

Sport has become a multi-billion dollar industry and therefore a lucrative area to tap into and add value to the economy.

Speaking at the 2024 African Uunion Sports Commission (AUSC) Region 5 Confederation Forum on Wednesday, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sport and Arts, Tebogo Matebesi said in Botswana alone, sport, arts and culture contributed 2.1 per cent to the country’s Gross Development Product (GDP) as per 2021 data from Statistics Botswana.

“The combined direct and indirect effects of sport can add up to a significant portion of the economy.

For example, in the European Union (EU), the direct effects of sports combined with their multiplier effects added up to 2.98 per cent of the overall Gross Value Added as far back as 2017,” he said.

This evidence, he said must be a benchmark for the region to harness and realise measurable economic contributions through sport.

 He said as a sport movement, they must deploy efforts towards transforming sport from being a consumptive industry into becoming a productive industry.

Furthermore, Matebesi said the European Commission in its second study on the economic impact of sport through sport satellite accounts published in 2018 demonstrated the fast-growing importance of sport sector in national economies.

According to the conclusions of the study, he said the share of sport-related GDP within the EU was 2.12 per cent and amounted to more than  P4 trillion (€ 279.7 billion.)

Furthermore, he said the share of sport-related employment amounted to 2.72 per cent of total EU employment, equivalent to over five million persons.

Matebesi said researchers explained in the study that sport is an employment-intensive economic activity, therefore generating a greater share in employment than in GDP.

In other issues, he said sport as an industry needs to be credible, based on strong value systems, principles of ethical conduct and integrity.

 Matebesi said also there was a need for sport to broaden its value span to harness tourism, health, economics and other social transformation sectors to be relevant and sustainable.

“In this scheme of things, we challenge confederations to come up with ideas to harness schools sport as the bedrock for growth and development.

We need support from regional confederations and national federations in recapacitating schools sport and develop this constituency as a vibrant sector of our growth strategy,” he said.  ENDS