Burden of Sport Injuries in the European Union - Safety in Sports

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3 | February 2012
tunity for immigrants and the host society to interact together in a positive way, because
“sport promotes a shared sense of belonging and participation”.
3.4 Economy
There are various economic aspects of sports, direct expenditures (or income) where
money flows can be observed at least in principle, as well as indirect economic effects
as societal costs, which cannot be assessed by observing money flows but can only be
estimated with the help of theoretical constructs. Direct expenditures are e.g. public
spending for facilities and events, expenditures of sport clubs and federations, expenditures
of facility providers, expenditures of consumers (e.g. for sport equipment,
clothing, services, travelling, and tickets for events, expenditures of business for
sport sponsoring and sport related advertising, expenditures of media for reporting –
including the costs of treating sport injuries. This complements to the income of sport
club and their federations, the providers of sport facilities and event organizers, sport
good industry, sports good traders, service providers in tourism, salaries of sport
teachers, trainers and other related professionals - including health professionals
treating sport injuries.
Societal costs are indirect expenditures as e.g. the loss of productivity as consequence
of sport injuries. Societal savings are related to the other immaterial benefits as savings
of health expenditures due to the enhancement of health, savings of welfare
costs due to educative effects on adolescents or integration of marginalized groups.
Referring to the White Paper (Commission of the European Communities 2007a)
“sport is a fast growing sector with an underestimated macro-economic impact…It
can serve as a tool for local and regional development.” For example the infrastructure
can be improved through sport events. Sport and sport related tourism create
new jobs. For assessing the share of sport satellite accounts have been developed. “A
satellite account of sport can gather – when other data are missing – all available information
about costs, expenditures, financing, the factors of production, and about
who exactly uses sports goods and services. All gathered data are classified within
the national account framework, although some magnitudes are registered in nonmonetary
units” (Andreff & Szymanski 2006, p15).
Any use of this technique depends highly on the definition of sport and sport related
businesses. Initiated by the White Paper (quote) the EU working group “sport and
economics” of the European Commission has developed the “Vilnius definition of
sport” which is based on the NACE classification (“Nomenclature statistique des ac-