The economic value of elite sports - The case of Sweden

This study is about elite sports in Sweden. There are a lot of ways of studying the economic value of elite sports. In this article we use information from population data, club accounting and a questionnaire to get a picture of the economic values of elite sports. Our knowledge from earlier research concerning the economic value of elite sports is mainly based on US data. The Scandinavian model for sport is different from sports in the USA since the clubs are not owned by businesses and the goals are more or less “sport for all”. This paper tries to present a picture of the process of elite sports in countries there elite sports traditionally has been a mixture between professional and amateur. The results from willingness to pay analysis for the presence of elite sports in the actual county indicate values of 350 SEK (about 35 EURO) per year and person in Sweden. Another way of calculating the value of the elite teams is by estimating how many working hours people are prepared to devote to helping the club. If these hours are translated into economic values, it runs into between 3000 to 5000 SEK (about 300 to 500 EURO) per year and person, depending on location in Sweden