An Overview - Sport New Zealand

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6 1. Introduction New Zealanders value sport and recreation 15,000+ sport and recreation clubs New Zealanders love sport – 9 out of 10 young people and 8 out of 10 adults take part in sport and recreation 2 million tickets sold to sports events Sports events have a significant impact. Westpac stadium, for example, contributed $48 million to Wellington’s economy in 2009/10 and supported over 600 jobs 500 elite athletes 1,000 professional sports people Consider a typical weekend in New Zealand. Before dawn, sleepers in Department of Conservation huts wake up and prepare for a day of tramping, climbing or hunting. In towns and cities, rowers begin arriving at smooth stretches of water to prepare for training or racing, and swimmers begin their early morning schedule of conditioning work. Throughout the country, cyclists and runners eat a carefully considered breakfast before setting out on their week’s long distance exercise. As the morning progresses, playing fields, stadiums and gymnasiums up and down the country are filled by tens of thousands of young people engaged in sport competitions, spurred on by large numbers of parents and siblings supporting them on the sidelines. At different times of the year, some of these young people are picked for representative teams that travel to participate in national tournaments. As morning turns into afternoon, sport and recreation involving adult participants become more common. The recreation includes a wide range of water-based activity on rivers or lakes, in harbours or at the beach, or in public or private swimming pools. It also includes families travelling to regional parks for bike trails or walking tracks. The sport includes a wide range of social competitions, but also top-grade contests for which the participants (including the contest officials) have trained seriously during the week. After these events, club rooms everywhere provide opportunities for members to socialise and talk about what they have done or watched. Sport and recreation activities continue into the evening. It is a rare Saturday, for example, when there is no night-time horse racing. National competitions involving team franchises or provincial representative teams often include evening events to increase the size of the television audience. These national competitions are typically organised by professional sports administrators and many of the participants receive at least some financial reward. All day, however, thousands of people are involved as volunteers, helping participants of all ages get the most from their activities. In some parts of the country, local professional or volunteer organisers may have arranged a special event or tournament that attracts hundreds of visitors as participants or spectators. This includes fun runs, marathons, road cycle races, yachting or rowing regattas, masters sporting tournaments, annual regional or national championships, and the like. The weekend will typically include one or more sports events involving individuals or teams selected to represent New Zealand. For some contests, the media will have been in a frenzy for days, reporting on individual form and making predictions about the outcome. The event may be watched by an audience of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, and will be the subject of much debate afterwards. Overnight and for the rest of the week, broadcasters and journalists will prepare and publish commentary eagerly consumed by supporters.
THE VALUE OF SPORT 7 The importance of valuing the benefits of sport and recreation Sport and recreation are highly valued in New Zealand. Individuals and communities invest considerable amounts of time and money in sport and recreation. There are more than 15,000 sport and recreation clubs at a local level, supported by approximately 776,000 volunteers. Large areas of New Zealand are managed by the Department of Conservation ‘for conservation, scientific and recreational purposes’. Local councils invest billions of dollars in indoor and outdoor sport and recreation facilities that cater for everyone, from youngsters first learning to chase after a ball to professional athletes competing in front of a television audience of millions. Community clubs and private businesses complement these public facilities by providing their own goods and services to New Zealanders engaged in sport and recreation. Given this high level of public and private investment, it is important to have some shared understanding of the benefits (minus any costs) produced by participation in sport and recreation. This is recognised internationally, where there is considerable interest in valuing the benefits of sport and recreation. In Europe, for example, researchers and statisticians are working towards creating Sport Satellite Accounts (which sit alongside the National Accounts) for countries in the European Union. More generally, it is now commonplace for provinces and regions around the world to commission studies on the contribution of sport and recreation to their local economies. Consequently, SPARC commissioned Professor Paul Dalziel to prepare a comprehensive framework to value the benefits of sport and recreation in New Zealand. The framework was designed to be consistent with similar overseas research and it used the latest available data. These new estimates update those from studies carried out more than a decade ago for the Hillary Commission. The work also drew on a more recent preliminary analysis completed for SPARC by NZIER. A full copy of the AERU report The Economic and Social Value of Sport and Recreation to New Zealand (which includes much more detail, including information about data sources and reports referred to here) can be downloaded from the SPARC website. On an average day, 200,000 people watch rugby, netball and tennis matches on TV One-third of New Zealand’s total land area is managed by the Department of Conservation New Zealand households spend $1.3 billion on sports goods and equipment – as much as they spend on dining out Central government spends $500 million on sport and recreation
Page 1 and 2: The Economic and Social Value of Sp
Page 3 and 4: THE VALUE OF SPORT 1 Foreword I am
Page 5 and 6: THE VALUE OF SPORT 3 Tables Table 1
Page 7: THE VALUE OF SPORT 5 Sport and recr
Page 11 and 12: THE VALUE OF SPORT 9 2. Valuing Spo
Page 13 and 14: THE VALUE OF SPORT 11 The total val
Page 15 and 16: THE VALUE OF SPORT 13 Using the dat
Page 17 and 18: THE VALUE OF SPORT 15 Figure 4 Empl
Page 19 and 20: THE VALUE OF SPORT 17 The contribut
Page 21 and 22: THE VALUE OF SPORT 19 5. Social Ben
Page 23 and 24: THE VALUE OF SPORT 21 Calculating p
Page 25 and 26: THE VALUE OF SPORT 23 6. Conclusion
Page 27 and 28: THE VALUE OF SPORT 25 Appendix: Key
Page 29 and 30: THE VALUE OF SPORT 27 Chapter 5: Pr
Page 31: Ground Floor, 86 Customhouse Quay,

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