Contemporary Sporting Issues: The Funding of Physical Activity. Mr. P. Leighton Socio-Cultural Issues

Today’s Session… Introduce how physical activity is funded in the UK. Understand the difference between Private funding. Public funding. Voluntary funding.

Funding of Physical Activity… Sport makes money and also costs money! What are the 3 areas of funding we need to be aware of? Private Public Voluntary

Voluntary Funding… Donations from people Subscription fees- paying subs Sports match grants Awards for All Local Authority Grants Fundraising

Private Funding… Business profit Ticket Sales TV rights Sponsorship of team

Private Funding: A Disastrous Example: Setanta Sports. Setanta (Dublin based firm) ceased operations this year due to financial difficulties. Setanta showed everything from International Football to Boxing and Wrestling. Setanta ran into financial difficulties when they couldn’t pay the 30m owed to the Premier League and the 3m owed to Scottish League clubs (some clubs put in jeopardy due to this) A heavy reliance on private funding by clubs lead to near administration and closure i.e. Gretna.

Public Funding… Taxes. National Lottery ticket sales. Local Government. Grants from central Government. Charges for facility usage.

Political interest… Historically, sport has been viewed by Governments as low status activity, receiving insufficient funding. This meant that voluntary and private funding needed to be in place. Increasingly however, the vote winning potential of providing quality facilities for all and achieving international success has lead to some changes of political heart i.e. London 2012.

Fact… England’s failure to qualify for the Euro 2008 football tournament mean a loss of an estimated… 2 BILLION POUNDS in business!!!

Reading… Re-read this chapter in the book 254-258. Copy down the POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES table on pg 259.