Sports economics

Our sports economics practice helps sports governing bodies and leagues, clubs, sponsors, broadcasters and government apply economic analysis to their most important strategic, commercial and regulatory questions.

We have specialist expertise in:

  1. Investment appraisal and evaluation;
  2. Pricing strategy;
  3. Benefits measurement and management; and
  4. Sponsorship and marketing effectiveness.

We operate as part of PwC’s global Sports practice, drawing on the knowledge and insights of our colleagues across the wider network.

Key questions we can help clients to answer

Sports governing bodies and leagues

We can help you answer important questions, including: if you are organising a major event, if you are looking to develop your commercial strategy, if you need to articulate your economic, social or environmental value or if you are looking to understand the economic value of your media rights.

  • How much value do we bring both locally and nationally?
  • Which areas are the most commercially and operationally viable for hosting a major sporting event?
  • How do we ensure that our events are sustainable in the long term?
  • How do we ensure that potential benefits are realised?
  • What is the value of our media rights?
  • How can we optimise rights acquisition or distribution?

Clubs

We can help you answer important questions, including: if you want to maximise your key revenue streams (e.g. ticketing strategy), if you need to assess the value of your player rights, if you need to forecast customer demand and if you want to use predictive modelling to aid performance development.

  • How can we demonstrate our economic and social value to critical stakeholders?
  • How can we forecast existing and future demand for ticket sales?
  • How can we maximise our key revenue streams and commercial assets?
  • What is the value of our player rights?
  • How do our sponsorship arrangements impact our long-term brand health?
  • How can we use predictive modelling to aid performance development?

Sponsors and broadcasters

We can help you answer important questions, including: if you want to calculate the return on your investment (by marketing channel), if you need to optimise your marketing budget, if you want to understand the value of media rights and if you are deciding which events, leagues and clubs to target.

  • Which major sporting events / leagues / clubs should we target?
  • How can we calculate our return on investment?
  • How does our return on investment differ by marketing channel and location?
  • How much are media rights worth?

Central and local government

We can help you answer important questions, including: if you need to develop a robust economic case, if you are deciding where to host a major event, if you need to articulate the impacts of a major investment decision and if you want the benefits of a major event to be realised.

  • What are the potential economic benefits of hosting a major sporting event on the host city and more widely?  
  • And what are the long-term wellbeing and participation impacts of hosting a major event on the local community and more widely?
  • How can we develop a robust economic case as part of our host-city tender?
  • Where is the optimal location to host a major event?
  • How do we maximise the legacy benefits of our venues?
  • What are the economic, social and environmental impacts of constructing a new sports facility?

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