Putting a value on sport’s contribution to Wales

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Extra Time Dec 2023
Putting a value on sport’s contribution to Wales

By Owen Hathway, Sport Wales Assistant Director - Insights, Policy and Public Affairs

How do you put a price on quality of life? What is the value of sport? These are the sort of questions that a new Social Return on Investment study of sport in Wales helps to answer.

The study, commissioned by Sport Wales and conducted independently by the world leading Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, is the second SRoI study that has been conducted for sport in Wales, with the previous iteration produced in 2016/17.

There have been a few changes to the methodology between studies, most notably using the Chief Medical Officer’s 150 minutes of activity guidelines as the base metric in this new report, as well as the inclusion of new data sets around depression, back pain and sport related injuries.

Headline figures

The headline figure is that sport contributes a staggering £5.89bn in social value to Wales. This comes through a range of areas including health, subjective wellbeing, social capital and volunteering. When we measure that against the £1.35bn in inputs, we get a social return on investment figure of 4.44. Or to put it another way, for every £1 invested in sport in Wales there is a £4.44 return.

Health benefits

The health benefits alone are a net £621m, which is £679m in identified contributions to the preventative health agenda, adjusted slightly due to -£58m due to sport related injuries. There are significant benefits from sport aligned to prevention of depression, back pain, chronic heart disease, dementia, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.

There is the financial benefit of prevention of injury and illness to the NHS directly, but also the impacts of increased productivity and social cohesion by avoiding issues. In terms of cases, it was estimated through the work of this study that over 113,000 cases of ill health were prevented, across these areas of risk, in 2021/22 due to sport.

It is perhaps worth noting that we really are focused on the wider issues of health and wellbeing. These figures, with the exception of depression statistics, broadly look at the impact of sport on ill-health prevention within physical health.

Mental health

Capturing the impact on mental health is incredibly important, especially seeing the role of mental health within policy interventions within the work of the Welsh Government and health services.

We also see, from the Wales Activity Tracker, that over the past 12 months there has been a shift in the driver for people’s activity with more people now doing sport for the mental health than their physical health. It is a shift that has been sustained across a number of those tracker surveys, therefore highlighting the important role sport is playing in the nation’s mental health and wellbeing.

Building on that focus on mental health we see a £2bn contribution from sport to subjective wellbeing. This is drawn from statistics where individuals report better mental health and wellbeing because of involvement in sport, as either a participant or volunteer.

Volunteering doesn’t just benefit participants

The volunteer contribution through sport in Wales is enormous. £430m provided in-kind to Wales. Where would we be as a sector without those dedicated individuals that sustain it?

However, while we derive significant value from volunteers providing their time for free (to benefit participants) there is also a huge benefit to the volunteer themselves, highlighting the importance of the whole system, not just those participating in it. As a sector we need to showcase this, given both the increased need to rely on volunteers in a financially challenging future, and the continued concern about a lack of volunteer workforce post covid.

We also see significant impact on social capital (£2.87bn) which includes values for the networks that are created through sport and the enhanced wellbeing that is driven by those relationships. As an example of this, the recently published State of the Nation report found that adults who are active more than three times a week feel less lonely than those who exercise less frequently.

Demonstrating the power of sport

The report, which will be published in full on the Sport Wales website next week, shines a bright light on the power of sport and how it plays a crucial role in creating not just a healthy nation, but a happy, confident and connected one. As we have always known in the sport sector, ours is a product that can truly unlock the potential of the Welsh population. The key now is helping those in health, education and beyond to maximise the opportunities that working with us collectively and collaboratively can yield, at a time when that is needed more than ever.