{"id":64329,"date":"2015-11-18T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T12:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=d5fe0a237e5a41fe0b590979eeb8a396"},"modified":"2015-11-18T12:07:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-18T12:07:00","slug":"speech-sport-and-business-a-winning-combination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=64329","title":{"rendered":"Speech: Sport and business: a winning combination"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The last time I gave a speech about sport, I was still Secretary of State at DCMS<\/abbr>. <\/p>\n

And during my 12 months in charge of sports policy, England\u2019s men\u2019s football and cricket teams both crashed out of their respective World Cups in the first round. <\/p>\n

Now I know the Prime Minister\u2019s a big rugby fan.<\/p>\n

So I think he reshuffled me to BIS<\/abbr> as a precaution ahead of THAT world cup\u2026 <\/p>\n

But look, I\u2019m not taking the blame for that one!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all down to John Whittingdale<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Of course, I\u2019m happy to take the credit for England\u2019s women winning the Rugby World Cup while I was at DCMS<\/abbr>. <\/p>\n

And our women cricketers won the Ashes, too\u2026<\/p>\n

When I worked in banking I used to pop out on a Saturday and head over to a local bar.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019d sit with dozens of other people, all of whom were absolutely rapt by the Premier League game being shown on the big screen.<\/p>\n

Nothing unusual there.<\/p>\n

The kind of thing that happens up and down the country every weekend.<\/p>\n

Except this wasn\u2019t in Bromsgrove, or London.<\/p>\n

It was Singapore.<\/p>\n

And the crowd wasn\u2019t just fellow expats.<\/p>\n

The place was always packed with locals all filled with passion and commitment and genuine love for their team.<\/p>\n

Often a team from a country and city they\u2019d never visited and would never visit. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a scene you see repeated around the world.<\/p>\n

On my travels I\u2019ve found that the Premier League is like the international language of taxi drivers! <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve met office workers in China wearing Liverpool shirts.<\/p>\n

Waiters in Tanzania who\u2019ll talk at length about whether Tottenham will ever crack the top four\u2026 <\/p>\n

Manchester United are so popular in Malaysia that in 2011 Prime Minister Najib Razak invited 10,000 people to watch the Champions League Final with him. <\/p>\n

And that was despite the game kicking off at 2:45am on a Sunday morning!<\/p>\n

The Premier League is one of Britain\u2019s most recognised and most popular brands.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s also one of our biggest and most successful businesses both at home and abroad. <\/p>\n

In 2013 to 2014 the league generated \u00a33.4 billion in GVA<\/abbr>, supported over 100,000 jobs and contributed \u00a32.4 billion in taxes. Taxes that pay for our schools, our hospitals, for the police.<\/p>\n

The number of foreign tourists attending a game reached 800,000 last year.<\/p>\n

And they spent an average of \u00a3200 more than other tourists while they were here.<\/p>\n

And its popularity just keeps on growing. <\/p>\n

Twenty-three years ago, Sky piggy-backed on the emerging Premier League to build its customer base. <\/p>\n

Today, competition for Premier League TV rights has been the driving force in the emergence of BT as a serious broadcaster. <\/p>\n

The Premier League is broadcast to 730 million homes in 185 countries.<\/p>\n

And it earns more from overseas TV rights than the whole of BBC Worldwide \u2013 \u00a3722 million in 2013 to 2014. <\/p>\n

So the Beatles might not have been bigger than Jesus.<\/p>\n

But England\u2019s top flight is definitely bigger than Dr Who!<\/p>\n

But for all its success there\u2019s a lot more to British sport than the Premier League alone. <\/p>\n

Because every year, sport contributes tens of billions of pounds to the British economy.<\/p>\n

Sport-related consumer spending is worth in the region of \u00a330 billion a year.<\/p>\n

When the Tour de France visited the UK last year, almost 5 million people turned out to watch, myself included!<\/p>\n

The race added more than \u00a3100 million to Yorkshire\u2019s economy, with a boost to tourism set to be felt for years to come.<\/p>\n

Motorsports Valley is home to 3,500 companies employing 40,000 highly skilled people. <\/p>\n

Ninety per cent of those businesses export, and together they generate \u00a39 billion in revenues. <\/p>\n

The 2013 NFL<\/abbr> International Series added as much as \u00a360 million to London\u2019s economy in just 2 weekends. <\/p>\n

The series has been such a success that it now sells out 3 games every autumn. <\/p>\n

There are plans to increase it to 4 games in the near future, with high hopes of a franchise moving here before long. <\/p>\n

The 2014 Commonwealth Games gave a \u00a3100 million boost to Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Twelve months later the World Gymnastics Championships arrived in the city, drawing visitors from around the world.<\/p>\n

And while the Rugby World Cup was not exactly a great success for England on the pitch, things looked much rosier off it. <\/p>\n

Almost 2.5 million people filed through the turnstiles, with another 120 million watching on TV around the world. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s thought the event added almost a billion pounds to Britain\u2019s GDP<\/abbr>. <\/p>\n

Early reports say there was a 9% rise in beer sales \u2013 presumably down to England fans drowning their sorrows!<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the big daddy of them all, the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games. <\/p>\n

Winning, planning and hosting the Games created almost a million job years of employment.<\/p>\n

People visiting London 2012 events spent almost \u00a32.5 billion.<\/p>\n

The Games\u2019 net impact on the UK\u2019s tourist industry was in the region of \u00a3600 million.<\/p>\n

And, from bid to legacy, from 2004 to 2020, the economic impact is estimated to be as high as \u00a341 billion of GVA<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n

For a pair of 2-week events, the figures are almost unimaginably huge.<\/p>\n

However, here\u2019s a challenge for you.<\/p>\n

This afternoon, walk outside onto Victoria Street, stop a random passer-by and ask them what they liked best about London 2012<\/p>\n

I\u2019m willing to bet that you won\u2019t find a single person whose highlight of the Games was the GVA<\/abbr> numbers.<\/p>\n

Nobody will reminisce about where they were on the night that job years of employment passed the 800,000 mark. <\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s memories are of a fantastic summer of sport.<\/p>\n

Of a sometimes cynical, self-doubting nation brought together with renewed confidence and a shared passion.<\/p>\n

We remember Mo Farah\u2019s elation.<\/p>\n

Chris Hoy\u2019s tears.<\/p>\n

Nicola Adams\u2019 infectious, irrepressible smile.<\/p>\n

We remember a time when we could be heroes\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026just for one day.<\/p>\n

Because sport is big business, certainly.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not only business.<\/p>\n

And we forget that at our peril.<\/p>\n

Sport occupies a unique place in Britain\u2019s history and culture.<\/p>\n

We invented or codified most of the world\u2019s most popular pastimes, from boxing to bungee jumping.<\/p>\n

Despite recent wobbles in various men\u2019s world cups, we continue to punch well above our weight on the global stage. <\/p>\n

Up and down the country, sports clubs are the beating heart of their communities.<\/p>\n

Counties, towns and villages define themselves through their football, rugby and cricket teams.<\/p>\n

The mood of entire cities can fluctuate in line with what happens on a Saturday afternoon. <\/p>\n

Amateur clubs, organised by dedicated volunteers, bring people together in numbers that no government programme can match. <\/p>\n

Cyclists, runners and swimmers who know they will never reach the top turn out again and again simply through the love of their sport. <\/p>\n

There is literally nothing else like it. <\/p>\n

And business underpins it all.<\/p>\n

It allows us to invest in continued success at the highest level, and develop the talent of the future at the grassroots.<\/p>\n

But someone who puts business before sport knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.<\/p>\n

At Wembley last night we saw the unique power sport has to bring people together in the face of tragedy.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something no other business can match.<\/p>\n

Last month, when England lost to Australia in the rugby, the country didn\u2019t mourn because of the impact on GDP<\/abbr> growth.<\/p>\n

We mourned because of the crushing disappointment, because dreams that had been built up over a decade were shattered in 2 devastating defeats. <\/p>\n

In recent years, too many football teams have gone to the wall not because of poor performance on the pitch, but because of poor performance in the boardroom.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tragedy when any local business has to close its doors. <\/p>\n

But when a sports team locks its doors, the community loses something that\u2019s more than economic. <\/p>\n

It loses its centre, its source of civic pride. <\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just a British problem.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s the Russian doping scandal in athletics, Lance Armstrong\u2019s legacy in cycling, or the disgraceful scenes unfolding at FIFA<\/abbr>, the pursuit of victory and profit at all costs leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. <\/p>\n

As a government we\u2019re trying to promote and support grassroots sport, to get more people active and healthy.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s much harder when business and money is allowed to trample on tradition, leaving people disillusioned and disconnected. <\/p>\n

I know that, for most of the people in this room, I\u2019m preaching to the choir.<\/p>\n

You got into this business because you love sport, not because you love money.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re good enough at what you do to recognise that putting business before sport risks destroying the very product you\u2019ve been so successful at selling to the world.<\/p>\n

But the risk we face is similar to that I raised in a speech about capitalism<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Capitalism has done wonderful things for the world, but recent challenges have left people unhappy and seeking alternatives. <\/p>\n

Business has done wonderful things for sport, but that too has left people feeling disenfranchised.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a real problem, because sporting success and a thriving sports industry have a symbiotic relationship.<\/p>\n

They feed off each other.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t have one without the other. <\/p>\n

We must all do a better job of communicating the benefits of business to the fans who make British sport what it is.<\/p>\n

Because for all the success the UK sports industry has achieved over the past 25 years, the potential for the future is greater still.<\/p>\n

Sport is changing.<\/p>\n

The kind of sport we watch is changing.<\/p>\n

The way we consume it and participate in it is changing too.<\/p>\n

And the private sector has a massive role to play in this.<\/p>\n

Just look at participation. <\/p>\n

In the past, \u2018participating in sport\u2019 meant joining your pub\u2019s Sunday League team or signing up with your local running club. <\/p>\n

Plenty of people still do this, and it should absolutely be encouraged. <\/p>\n

My children go to taekwondo every weekend and I wouldn\u2019t change it for the world. <\/p>\n

But signing up and playing the same sport week-in, week-out is no longer the only path to follow.<\/p>\n

People now participate in sport in the way they consume television or music, picking and choosing from a wide range of options. <\/p>\n

And that often means breaking out of traditional, formal models and embracing an alternative offered by the private sector.<\/p>\n

For years the FA<\/abbr> concentrated its grassroots efforts on the traditional 11-a-side Sunday morning parks game.<\/p>\n

But Goals Soccer Centres managed to kick off a whole new footballing culture by meeting an untapped demand for competitive, after-work 5-a-side football.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, ParkRun has created a global phenomenon by organising fun, free inclusive 5Ks without the red tape and regulation that comes with an event sanctioned by a governing body. <\/p>\n

The way we watch sport is changing too.<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, I had the choice between listening to the latest England batting collapse on Test Match Special or watching it unfold on Ceefax.<\/p>\n

Today, technology has revolutionised the way we enjoy sport.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s streaming coverage, text commentary, over-by-over liveblogs.<\/p>\n

Vines, Periscopes and so much more. <\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s World Twenty20 Qualifier, the International Cricket Council used digital channels to reach millions of fans in hundreds of countries, including in non-traditional markets such as the USA.<\/p>\n

The most tweeted-about event in history is the 2014 World Cup.<\/p>\n

Eight of the top 10 tweeted about moments of 2014 in the UK were sport-related. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s now possible for millions of people worldwide to debate a dodgy offside decision in real time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve even heard stories about Bromsgrove Sporting fans gathering in pubs to follow away games on Twitter. <\/p>\n

A hi-tech version of my Ceefax adventures from years gone by!<\/p>\n

And the sports we watch are changing too. <\/p>\n

The big 3 of football, cricket and rugby continue to dominate.<\/p>\n

But others are starting to make their mark. <\/p>\n

Not so very long ago the idea of London hosting the World Track Cycling Championships in a 6,000-seat velodrome was fanciful enough. <\/p>\n

But doing so and selling out every session months in advance? <\/p>\n

That was in the realm of fantasy. <\/p>\n

Yet that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happened.<\/p>\n

The 2012 Paralympics were the most successful in history. <\/p>\n

Athletes used to competing in front of a handful of spectators found themselves being watched by tens of thousands. <\/p>\n

And women\u2019s sport is coming to the fore. <\/p>\n

45,000 people packed into Wembley to watch England\u2019s Lionesses take on Germany ahead of this summer\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s tournament has become so successful that FIFA<\/abbr> is considering whether to split the commercial rights for the men\u2019s and women\u2019s world cups.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve already said, our women\u2019s rugby team are the world champions \u2013 showing the men how to do it. <\/p>\n

And between now and 2019 the UK will be hosting the women\u2019s world cups in cricket, hockey and netball. <\/p>\n

New sports, new technologies, new audiences, new ways of participating.<\/p>\n

It all adds up to a future filled with new opportunities for business \u2013 but only if you put sport first.<\/p>\n

The UK sports industry is a fantastically successful international business, a real world leader.<\/p>\n

Like all world-leading British businesses, it\u2019s a sector the government is doing everything it can to support.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re cutting corporation tax, protecting your intellectual property rights and fighting for a digital single market.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m in talks with my former department about how we can best work you to tackle the challenges you face and make the most of the opportunities on offer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an approach we\u2019ve already taken with many other business sectors.<\/p>\n

But of course, sport is not like any other business. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s something much bigger.<\/p>\n

And if you remember that\u2026<\/p>\n

If you put the needs of the fans and athletes ahead of the demands of your bottom line\u2026 <\/p>\n

If you put hopes and dreams ahead of pounds and pence\u2026 <\/p>\n

Then the possibilities for your business are unlimited.<\/p>\n

And the UK sports industry will stay on the top step of the podium for many years to come. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Business Secretary Sajid Javid celebrates the success of the UK\u2019s sports industry, but reminds the sector that it\u2019s not like any other business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64354,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64329\/revisions\/64354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}