BRADFORD was one of only eight cities across the UK to grow its sports economy during the Covid-19 lockdown and is now valued at almost £80 million, research shows.
A joint report – “Competing for Growth” – by law firm Irwin Mitchell and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) has been produced to highlight the vital role of the UK’s sports economy and how further growth can be unlocked.
The report shows Bradford’s total sport-related GVA (gross value added) for 2019 was £74.7 million and grew by 5.1 per cent to £78.5 million in 2020.
Sports in the city also accounted for 2,925 jobs in 2020, a rise of 675 from the year before.
This growth in monetary value and employment happened despite the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, including multiple lockdowns.
The top eight growing sports economies in 2020 were in Yorkshire and the Humber and collectively, they added £60.1m to UK sports GVA.
Bradford sits in seventh out of those cities, with Rotherham below after a growth of three per cent in its sports economy, taking it to £40.9 million.
The West Yorkshire city though has the second highest sport-related GVA overall in that list of eight that experienced growth between 2019 and 2020.
It has a larger sports economy than Hull (£44.1 million), Huddersfield (£60.7 million), Doncaster (£62.8 million), Wakefield (£59.4 million) and York (£42.1 million) but sits below that of Sheffield (£171.2 million), which is the major outlier in the group.
Leeds’s sport-related GVA was similar to the Steel City’s, at £163.5 million in 2020 but it experienced a 10 per cent decrease on the year before.
Bradford’s £78.5m sport economy can continue to bring prosperity to the region and create more jobs if the Government invests more money in women’s elite sport and supports green initiatives amongst clubs, according to the report.
It makes three recommendations:
- Women’s Sport – Unlock funding to support the further growth of women’s professional sport including Women’s Super League
- Climate change – Provide funding and guidelines for green objectives for sports clubs
- Financial sustainability – Legislate for a new independent regulator for English Football
Thomas Barnard, partner and National Head of Irwin Mitchell’s Sports sector team, said: “This report highlights the strength and huge opportunities that exist within the sports sector in Bradford but at the same time it reveals how vulnerable local economies can be to periods of economic turbulence.”
