Sport as an industry

Dr. Yusuf Mansur*

Whenever Jordan achieves a sporting success in taekwondo, karate, or boxing, the same question arises: Why are we able to produce world-class and Olympic champions in certain individual sports, yet fail to achieve similar success in building clubs and national teams capable of sustained international competitiveness in football, basketball, and other team sports?

In advanced economies, sport is no longer merely a recreational or youth activity. It has become a fully fledged economic sector. Sport creates jobs, attracts investment, supports tourism, and stimulates the media, technology, and marketing industries. In the United Kingdom, for example, sport contributes approximately 2.6% of GDP and supports more than one million direct jobs. Across many European countries, sport has become an integral part of national economic development strategies.

Average government expenditure on sport and recreational activities across the European Union amounts to roughly 0.4% of GDP. In countries such as Finland, Sweden, and Hungary, the figure approaches 0.7%. By contrast, Jordan still lacks dedicated national accounts capable of accurately measuring sport’s contribution to GDP. The Ministry of Youth’s budget represents only around 0.07%–0.08% of GDP and approximately 0.25% of total government expenditure, while sports funding remains dispersed among the Ministry of Youth, the Olympic Committee, sports federations, universities, municipalities, and the private sector.

Yet the challenge is not simply one of spending levels. Recent European studies suggest that sporting success is not always correlated with the amount of money spent, but rather with the efficiency of spending, the quality of governance, management, and organization. Therefore, the key question is not: How much do we spend on sport? Rather, how do we transform sport into a productive economic sector?

Modern sport operates through an integrated economic ecosystem consisting of broadcasting rights, sponsorships and advertising, ticket sales, memberships, sports academies, official merchandise, digital content, and sports tourism. The more sophisticated this value chain becomes, the greater the ability of clubs and federations to invest in athletes, coaches, and infrastructure.

In most major global leagues, broadcasting rights constitute the largest source of revenue, followed by sponsorships and advertising, then ticket sales, official merchandise, memberships, and academies. In Jordan, however, most clubs continue to rely primarily on government support, semi-government funding, or donations, while commercial revenues remain extremely limited.

This brings us to perhaps the most important issue: sports marketing. Marketing is not merely a mechanism for increasing club revenues; it is the primary engine for developing sport itself. Every additional dinar generated through sponsorships, advertising, or merchandise sales translates into better training, more academies, higher-quality coaching, and greater ability to retain talent. In other words, advertising does not merely finance sport—it develops it.

The American experience offers an important lesson. Although football—or what Americans call soccer—is the world’s most popular sport, it has historically failed to become the dominant sport in the United States compared with American football, baseball, and basketball. One major reason is economic and media-related.

The American sports market evolved around television and advertising. Major American sports feature frequent stoppages that create numerous opportunities for commercial breaks during games. Soccer, by contrast, is characterized by continuous play and relatively few interruptions, making it traditionally less attractive to broadcasters and marketers whose business models depend heavily on in-game advertising.

The example does not mean that soccer is unprofitable. Rather, its commercial model is different. Soccer relies more heavily on shirt sponsorships, stadium advertising boards, broadcasting rights, global fan bases, and official merchandise. American football, meanwhile, evolved in a way that turns every stoppage into a commercial opportunity worth tens of millions of dollars for clubs and owners. This illustrates an important reality: sporting success depends not only on the number of players or fans but also on a sport’s ability to become a marketable media and commercial product.

This is particularly relevant for Jordan. If Jordanian sport wishes to attract greater advertising revenues, it cannot rely solely on match-day exposure. It must create an integrated marketing ecosystem that includes digital content, athlete storytelling, sports academies, fan engagement events, official merchandise, youth development programs, and women’s sports sponsorships.

Saudi Arabia offers another important example of sport as an economic and strategic tool. The Kingdom has invested heavily in football, boxing, golf, Formula One, and major international sporting events. The objective has not been purely athletic, but also economic, tourism-related, investment-driven, and media-oriented. The investments have contributed to reshaping Saudi Arabia’s global image and have made sport an integral component of the Kingdom’s nation-branding strategy, helping attract tourists, investors, and international attention while strengthening its soft power.

Also, Qatar has pursued a similar strategy through hosting the FIFA World Cup 2022 and using sport as a platform to enhance its international profile and strengthen its economic, tourism, and diplomatic standing.

The lesson for Jordan is not about matching the scale of Gulf spending, as economic capacities differ. Rather, it is about viewing sport as an economic investment and an instrument of soft power rather than merely a recreational activity.

This leads to another issue that is often overlooked in Jordanian sports discussions: sports intellectual property. In advanced sports economies, a club logo is not merely a drawing, a jersey is not merely a piece of fabric, and a club name is not merely a name. These are all valuable economic and commercial assets.

In the modern sports economy, a club’s brand may be worth more than its stadium. The brand value of some global clubs reaches billions of dollars, reflecting accumulated trust, reputation, fan loyalty, and sporting success. Real Madrid’s brand value is estimated at around US$2 billion, Liverpool’s at approximately US$1.6 billion, and Bayern Munich’s at roughly US$1.5 billion. Even if all their stadiums disappeared and their players left, the value of their names alone would still be measured in billions.

As a result, logos and jerseys are no longer merely sporting symbols; they are economic assets that generate revenues through merchandise sales, sponsorships, advertising, and licensing agreements. If Jordanian clubs wish to improve their financial position, they must treat their brands as investment assets that require protection, development, and active marketing.

When a fan purchases an official European club jersey, part of the purchase price flows directly to the club. When a company uses a club’s logo or players’ images, it pays licensing fees. In Jordan, however, markets remain saturated with counterfeit products, unauthorized jerseys, and insufficient protection of club trademarks. Every counterfeit jersey sold represents lost revenue and destroyed economic value.

Yet even if marketing and intellectual property challenges are addressed, an important question remains: Why do individual sports perform better in Jordan than team sports? The answer is largely economic. Individual sports require far lower levels of investment. A capable coach, a suitable training facility, and a limited number of athletes may be sufficient to produce a world champion in taekwondo, karate, or boxing.

Team sports, by contrast, require a complete ecosystem that includes stadiums, academies, sports medicine, performance analytics, professional management, competitive leagues, sponsors, fan bases, broadcasting arrangements, transportation, accommodation, nutrition, and continuous development programs. Simply put, individual sports require talent, while team sports require an industry.

This is why Jordan’s success in taekwondo is not surprising, and why its difficulties in building globally competitive team sports programs are equally unsurprising. If Jordan seeks a transformational leap in sport, the required reforms extend far beyond increasing financial support. First, Jordan should establish a national sports satellite account to measure sports’ contribution to GDP, employment, and investment. Second, major clubs should be transformed into professional institutions with independent commercial and marketing management. Third, a unified system for selling broadcasting rights should be developed to increase the commercial value of domestic leagues. Fourth, sports intellectual property must be protected, and counterfeit merchandise must be strictly controlled. Fifth, tax incentives should be introduced for companies investing in sports and sports academies. Sixth, school and university sports infrastructure should be strengthened and linked more closely to clubs. Seventh, sports investment funds should be established to encourage private-sector participation in developing clubs and sports facilities. Eighth, a national digital sports marketing strategy should be developed to target audiences both within Jordan and internationally. Ninth, a portion of government support should be linked to performance indicators such as youth participation, self-generated revenues, fan engagement, governance standards, and transparency.

The future of Jordanian sport will not be determined solely by the number of stadiums we build or the number of tournaments we host. It will be determined by our ability to build a genuine sports economy. Modern sport does not merely produce champions; it creates jobs, attracts investment, drives economic growth, enhances national branding, and strengthens soft power. The challenge of developing sport in Jordan is therefore not simply a sporting challenge—it is an economic, developmental, and investment challenge.

*The writer is a former Jordanian Minister of State for Economic Affairs.

Published on Jordan Times/ 20 June, 2026

https://jordantimes.com/opinion/yusuf-mansur/sport-as-an-industry