Sport and leisure

The sports industry continues to thrive. According to our latest Outlook for the Global Sports Market, global sports revenues will grow to US$145.3 billion by 2015 due to an improved economy, a rebound in TV advertising, the on-going migration of sports to pay TV and the resurgence of financial services and automobile companies to sponsorship.

Mega events will stimulate growth

Driving this will be the Olympics in 2012, the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014, the Rugby Union World Cup in 2015 and World Athletics Championship in 2017.

Whilst the facilities for the London Olympics were finished on time and within budget, the real success of the Games is likely to be judged on the longer legacy benefits, including whether there has been an increase in sports participation. Arguably there has been a hiatus in investment in community facilities, partly due to Lottery funding being redirected to the Olympics and also restrictions on public sector funding. So there will be a need for more innovative private and public sector funding models including Tax Incremental Finance.

Attractions have benefitted from the economic downturn

More Britons are holidaying in the UK. Many attractions recorded an increase in visitor numbers in 2011, albeit this often reflects significant new investment. The challenge remains how to maximise spend, from tickets and secondary spend, but also from tertiary spend as attractions also target the conference, banqueting and exhibition markets by offering slightly more unusual venues.

Meetings and events have been negatively affected by the downturn

The public sector and many companies have reduced non-essential spend to respond to the economic downturn. But there are some signs that the market is beginning to rebound, despite external factors such as the emergence of social networking and the continued pressure to opt for more sustainable methods of meeting, such as conference calls.

Among the many challenges for the sport and leisure sectors in the UK is a continued pressure on costs. The Union of European Football Association's (UEFA’s) financial fair play rules are already encouraging the top football clubs to focus on growing revenues, whilst reducing costs and similar rules lower down the football pyramid are being voluntarily being introduced. Sports bodies and associations must, and will, introduce new regulations to control the cost base and levels of debt in their sports to leave a sustainable business model for future generations.

Our in-depth experience includes market reviews, corporate governance, feasibility studies and business plans/cases, acquisitions, business recovery, finance raising, business valuation and due diligence. We also support major events across the globe in both the bidding, organisational and legacy phases.