Sports already serves as a key engine powering global economic growth — generating roughly $2.3 trillion in annual revenue across professional and participatory sports, sporting goods, and sports tourism. By 2030, we expect that total to increase to $3.7 trillion as policymakers continue to pull this popular lever to produce more jobs and growth.
Yet this opportunity is fragile: Converging trends such as rising physical inactivity, climate change, and nature loss threaten participation, operations, and the natural assets that make sports possible. If left unaddressed, these systemic risks could erode billions in revenue and weaken sports’ social license to operate.
Our recent analysis, “Sports for People and Planet”, conducted with the World Economic Forum, shows that the scale and cultural reach of sports makes it uniquely positioned to deliver both commercial returns and social impact. Four growth drivers are reshaping the sector and create avenues for purpose‑aligned investment, job creation, infrastructure development, and the promotion of health and well-being:
- The rapid rise of sports tourism, the largest projected contributor to near‑term revenue growth
- The maturation of sports as an investible asset class
- The surge in women’s sports
- The expansion of opportunity in emerging markets
At the same time, the sports economy produces a significant carbon footprint of between 400 million and 450 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. This means sustained commercial growth will require reconciling it with environmental stewardship over the long term.
Three pathways to sustainable growth in the global sports economy
To turn these risks into advantage, our report proposes three practical, multistakeholder pathways toward sustainable growth.
The first is to champion resource stewardship through avenues such as sustainable water usage, circular business models, and the adoption of sustainable materials and consumption models at sports events in order to strengthen business resilience.
The second pathway is to place sports at the heart of cities. This would involve integration of sports and physical activity into urban planning priorities, turning parks and public spaces into everyday assets for health, resilience, and inclusion. For instance, leveraging blue and green spaces as sporting assets, designing sporting infrastructure for both community well-being and environmental resilience, and providing low emission options for sports-related travel.
A third pathway aims to catalyze purpose‑driven capital flows. This would involve shifting sponsorships and investment from transactional deals toward values aligned partnerships and blended finance structures designed to deliver climate, nature, and inclusion outcomes across the value chain. Examples include Schnieder Electric’s collaboration with the Boston Marathon to measure and reduce its carbon footprint and Standard Chartered’s sponsorship of Liverpool FC, which supports the club’s sustainability strategy, “The Red Way, ” focused on reducing emissions, improving resource efficiency, and strengthening community impact.
Unlocking new revenue and resilience through sustainable sports partnership
When implemented together, these pathways create stronger, more resilient business performance as well as healthier, more inclusive communities that operate within safe boundaries for the environment.
The emotional resonance and cross‑cutting cultural influence of sports make it an ideal platform to normalize active lifestyles and sustainable behaviors at scale. This essentially turns fans and participants into agents of change, while unlocking new revenue pools for clubs, brands, franchises, cities, and investors.
For those investors and strategic partners opportunity is threefold: protect current revenue by addressing near‑term health and environmental threats, capture disproportionate upside from tourism, women’s sport and emerging markets, and reconfigure capital and commercial relationships to prioritize long‑term resilience.
Our report provides market sizing, case examples, and an implementation road map to move from ambition to measurable outcomes, helping organizations convert the cultural capital of sports into sustained shared prosperity for people and the planet.
