Sport boosts German economy
July 24, 2013
Sport is becoming increasingly important for the healthy state of the German economy, the Federal Institute for Sports Sciences (BISp) and the National Statistics Office (Destatis) reported Wednesday.
A study compiled for the Interior and Economics Ministries said private households in Germany spent 87.2 billion euros ($115 billion) annually on anything from sporting holidays to watching soccer matches in stadiums or buying sporting equipment.
The survey also pointed out that sport accounted for 73.1 billion euros in terms of the country's gross net product. A total of 1.766 million people were currently employed in the sports sector, the authors of the study found out.
Unbroken trend
"Sport has witnessed a very dynamic development in the country and is now as important economically as the car industry," co-author Gerd Ahlert said in a statement. "Sport has undergone a large degree of professionalization, and so have consumers," he added.
So far, there are no comparable figures available in Germany as similar surveys conducted in the 1990s employed completely different scientific methods. But the current study will be brought up to date every two years from now on.
Right now, expenditures for sports-related activities account for 6.6 percent of total consumption in Germany, with the figure expected to rise further in the years ahead.
hg/dr (dpa, SID)