The Italian sports industry accounts for over 3.4% of the country's GDP, with football, swimming, cycling, and eSport all experiencing growth. With increased investment in the sports business, Italy will profit from large events and sporting events, as well as digital forms of entertainment, in 2023. These are the findings of a report published by the Rome Business School. Although Italy's public spending in the sports sector (4.7 billion euros in 2022) has increased by an average of 3% per year over the past decade, its incidence on national expenditure remains lower than the European average (0.5% versus 0.8%) and lower in comparison to other EU countries: France is the leader in public support for sports activity, with 13.7 billion, followed by Germany with 9 billion. Spain has values similar to Italy, with € 5.1 billion in expenditure, but the incidence on national public expenditure was 1% (twice that of Italy). Despite this, the multiplier effect of 2021 Sport System investments was remarkable: 1 million euros of public investment activated approximately 8.9 million of private resources (41.8 billion versus 4.7 billion in public expenditure), resulting in an annual turnover of 96 billion, more than 20 times the initial public investment. This has also had favorable outcomes in 2022, demonstrating that "it is not possible to ignore the combination of public spending and its driving force," according to Tommaso Marazzi.
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