Sport is an economic driver across private industry and public sectors. A 2011 AT Kearney study estimated the revenues of global sports industry to be between €350b and €450b ($480b – $620b). This estimate includes sports teams, leagues and federations, infrastructure, sporting goods, licensed products, and live sports events. The global sports economy extends even further, to include participation sports (in clubs, gyms, schools, community), sport-related media including gaming, sport-related goods, and services such as hospitality, travel, concessions and sport tourism.
The broader societal impacts of sports programmes on health, education, and criminal justice are acknowledged, particularly in terms of youth development, but are not factored into the total economic value of sports. Investment in sports is still considered frivolous for communities in difficult economic conditions.
Women Win programme partners demonstrate the value of sport by integrating economic empowerment platforms into their sports programmes. Sport programmes may own facilities that can be rented at market prices to generate jobs and income. Skill building programmes can be repurposed and marketed to the private sector as leadership workshops. Others produce equipment and gear for their own programmes and offer these same products and services to paying clients.
Sadili Oval Sports Academy
Sadili Oval Sports Academy is an indigenous, non-profit, community-driven sports centre; one of the few of its kind in eastern and central Africa. Sadili Oval Sports Academy is a part of a unique social enterprise structure, which also includes a for-profit organisation. They open up their sport facilities to the paying public in order to partially subsidise their non-profit programmes. It uses a tiered pricing model to train competitive athletes, offer middle class families an affordable recreation facility and slum children an opportunity to play sports. Sadili Oval Sports Academy facilities are built on land that was formerly a sewage area – reclaimed by Sadili Oval – bordering Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi. It has used recycled materials to design and build gym equipment and the buildings themselves. The Sadili Oval Sports Academy "Sports for Life" programme offers weekly training for up to 3,000 children (42% of them are girls) in football, netball, tennis, basketball and swimming, as well as life skills and an extensive after-school programme. Children train an average of three times a week in their chosen sport with community coaches, and are provided with meals and life-skills workshops in HIV/AIDS, hygiene and environmental education. Sadili Oval Sports Academy tracks school attendance of the children participating in its programmes and has found an increase of 77%, in particular by girls.
Sadili Oval Sports Academy has expanded its programming to develop a network of "Girl Power Clubs." They now reach 67 secondary schools in different parts of Nairobi, with an emphasis on the most vulnerable groups. Through sport, Girl Power Clubs aim to help girls address a variety of life issues, including economic empowerment. In Girl Power Clubs, participants are challenged to build a business plan around an idea. The clubs with the best ideas win funding. They work on their project and report regularly on its progress. By doing so, they increase their understanding of how businesses work, improve their marketing skills, and learn to work with money and budgets.
The Homeless World Cup
The Homeless World Cup is noteworthy for its ability to highlight the complex issues of homeless women on a world stage through a successful event.
The Homeless World Cup is a unique, pioneering social organisation which exists to end homelessness. The organisation uses football to energise homeless people to change their own lives while developing innovative, effective solutions to homelessness worldwide. The organisation operates through a network of more than 70 national partners to support football programmes and social enterprise development. It celebrates its year-round work by running an annual international football tournament that unites teams of homeless people from countries around the globe.