Unit 3 Assignment 1 Bassam Al-Meshal
Careers in the Sports Industry
Part 1
1. Scope of the Sports Industry
During this assignment, I am going to cover the scope of the sports industry. To scope, is to
cover the extent of the sports industry and research the information necessary for this task.
The UK Sports Industry is worth an estimated £24 billion. This includes everything from
horse racing and athletics to boxing and football. Premier League clubs alone generated
£3.3 billion in tax revenue and contributed £7.6 billion to the economy and the sports
industry.
Worldwide, the sports industry increases its value by a margin. The global sports industry
has a value of £389.5 billion and is expected to increase in value to £479.3 billion by 2022.
This would include essentially all the sports in the world and their respective sub-industries
which would add up to massive amount of value as expected.
Due to the large value of the sports industry worldwide and UK based, it is expected it would
provide many opportunities for people hoping to work in the sports industry. This would
range from anything security and scouts to footballers and managers. All sports related jobs
pay well as their main source of income is extremely profitable and helps pay for the wages
of their workers and massive events that creates hype and viral attraction.
2. Overview of Types of Employment
Public Sector
The Public Sector are institutions that are funded by the public. The funding could come from a wide
range of taxes from council tax to VAT. These funds help facilitate and build sports facilities for the
public such as leisure centres and parks with sport installations like a football field. The funds could
also help schools build sport-based facilities on school site that could be accessed by both pupils and
the public.
Private Sector
The Private Sector provide privatised sport facilities via an individual, partnership or an association.
The sport facilities are usually built from an investment and therefore, the said investor would brand
the sport facility to their choice like Virgin. This is due private sport facilities being made for mainly
profit. A good investment would be football clubs as they are quite profitable.
The Private Sector provides sport facilities for solely two reasons; to make a return on their
investment and for their shareholders and to make a profit out of the sport.
Due to investments and a large budget, it would make private sport facilities on a much higher
quality and care than public sector sport facilities.
,Unit 3 Assignment 1 Bassam Al-Meshal
Third/Voluntary Sector
The Third/Voluntary Sector, which involves charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups,
delivers essential services to people in need, helps to improve people’s wellbeing and contributes to
the local and nationwide economic growth. The Sector also plays a vital role in supporting
communities and the community can help, support and develop the third sector by providing core
funding to the sector to ensure its vital work. The community can further improve the third sector by
providing support and regulation to charities, supporting social enterprises to help the sector grow,
encouraging volunteering through providing funding for awards and organisation and more.
3. Types of Employment
In the Sports Industry, there are multiple types of employment contracts that go hand in hand with
many of the careers in the sports industry. The type of contract would just depend on your
preference, what you would feel most comfortable with signing and how it would fit into your
schedule.
Full-time Contract
The most common type of employment contract would be the full-time contract
where these contracts would be generally offered for a permanent position in a
business/workplace. With these contracts, the number of hours and hourly wage,
along with benefits like pension benefits, parental leave, etc, are also discussed
and included in this contract. While there are no set minimum number of hours
on a full-time contract, most employers see 35 plus hours per week as full-time
work.
Part-time Contract
A part-time contract is most popular among teenagers/students looking for a
quick money and adults that lack the education required to acquire a full-time
contract and the reason for that is because part-time contracts are normally jobs
that are either minimum wage or jobs that are in sectors that are in a consumer-
based business like retail.
Part-time contracts offer a more flexible schedule which helps individuals to fit
their work around other commitments like studying without having to give up on
a large amount of time.
Zero Hour Contracts
Zero-hour contracts, also known as casual contracts, are jobs that an employee
would only come in for when required by an employer. This would mean that an
employee could be called in at any time ranging from 9am on a Monday or at
6pm on a Saturday.
Even with no idea on work hours, zero-hour workers are still entitled to annual
leave and the employer must pay them the national minimum wage no matter
the job.
, Unit 3 Assignment 1 Bassam Al-Meshal
Freelancers and Contractors
Work and hours vary from job to job as a freelancer/contractor as they are typically
self-employed and receive jobs from their own searches or have built up a business
where they were approached for their services.
Due to having no employer, freelancers/contractors have no employer and act as
their own boss, therefore it is their responsibility to look after tax and NI
contributions with freelancers/contractors not being entitled to the same rights of
permanent staff members but they do get to manage their own schedule and
negotiate their own terms like payment, hours, etc.
Geographical Factors
Geographical factors like climate change affect sport in multiple ways like events to matches of
various sports. If a football match was being held in a field and a storm happened to turn up, then
the match would need to be cancelled and possibly reschedule which only lengthens everything and
ruins the viewers and players of the game. Although a weather app can solve this problem, they are
not always reliable which makes people sceptical over the accuracy of weather forecasts and as
such.
Climate condition surrounding the area do not only affect sport but also affect the mood and
physiological function of athletes and players which puts matches and their team at a risk of loss if
the players are not at their most upmost performance during the match.
Geographical factors can also be positive. With Norwegians living in the Artic Circle and near the
Artic Ocean, it helps the Norwegian create sports relating to their surrounding climate like
snowboarding and skiing which is also popular all around the world.
The opposite is also true with hot summers in Ecuador made the people participate in summer
sports like sprinting, long jump, surfing and other sports that are in accordance with the local
weather.
Socio-economic Factors
Socio-economic factors like income, education and employment all affect elite and rising athletes
and players from all backgrounds that wish to pursue sport as a potential career and become big in
the industry.
Factors like education plays a huge difference in an athlete’s potential to become major in their
sport. For example, unless they are extremely gifted in the sport, they would have to go to a
prestigious school known for their respective sport to be able to get scouted and picked up to play
for a known team. For example, if an athlete’s passion is basketball, then they should aim to get into
the most prestigious college basketball they can possibly get into. University of Kentucky would be a
great college for future NBA prospects as they are the university that would give you the highest
chance of scoring it in the NBA, which is where most scouts look for their next player.
