The Sunday Mail
Nothing quite takes the place of passion, as this has been proven time and again by passionate sports lovers.
Regardless of what they face, sports lovers can’t help but go back for more and spend money on their passion.
Their loyalty is tested in the face of poor performance by their teams, as they keep the flag flying high.
Now, the big question that entreats an answer is: how much longer can fans go to satisfy their sports yearnings?
The answer to this question, research has shown, is that there’s no limit to how far a passionate sports lover will go to keep up with the passion.
Such efforts may include purchasing match tickets or paying for sports TV subscriptions, buying sports apparel, supporting a co-sport partner, and even gambling. As a result, it suffices to state that the list of what players can sacrifice to have a full grip on the game is endless. Against this backdrop, we try to explain what fans expend yearly to feed their sports desires.
What fans spend their money on
The topic of what fans spend their money on has been a subject of various research, survey, and specialised studies. Using available data, those studies have been able to ascertain how spending patterns amongst sports lovers have been in recent times. While some of the data reveals more than one sport, the others focus on just one – mostly a very popular game.
For instance, a study by LendEDU carried out in 2018 revealed that 62 percent of eSports fans spend an average of $566 yearly on varying facets of the game. Dissecting the statistics further, 86 percent of fans pay for eSports merchandise, 83 percent for TV subscription streaming services, 75 percent spend money on wagering on eSports. 79 percent purchase tickets to attend eSports events, while 50 percent of eSports offer donations to their preferred players.
Echo Research conducted a study titled American Express Spending and Saving Tracker and found that 76 percent of those understudied spent wholeheartedly on sports events.
In detail, the study revealed that purchasing tickets and attending those sports events amounted to the revenues expended on the sports. For people coming from distant places, transportation, lodging, feeding, and tickets also form part of the spending. In the same vein, a 2009 study by the National Sporting Goods Association found that over $8 billion was spent on sportswear by US adults.
Sports studied include football, soccer, golf, tennis, Indy car racing, baseball, basketball, NASCAR, hockey, and martial arts. The majority of the purchases were made by men — 60,9 percent — while women purchased 39,1 percent. It further discovered that, on average, $725 is spent on sports by sports lovers every year, with separate figures for young professionals and rich people. For young professionals, the value is pegged at an average of $1,143 per person every year. While for rich people, the figure rises to an average of $1,544 per person every year.
The role of gambling
Gambling on sports is considered part of the money spent on sports in almost every part of the world. So, gambling has contributed immensely to the billions of dollars spent on sports, from the Americas to Europe, to Africa to the Asia Pacific, to the Middle East, and Australasia. Plenty of sites for online betting without Gamstop self-exclusion offers their services for users even for Gamstop users. A report by Narus and Eilers and Krejcik Gaming has estimated that global gambling on eSports will rise to $13 billion in 2020, with $6,7 billion being the estimate for 2018.
The study by LendEDU suggests that an average of $607 is gambled on eSports annually by average players. About 75 percent of the people surveyed admitted to gambling on eSports, with gambling revenues on eSports piqued to reach $900 million in 2018 and $3 billion in 2020.
An estimate from Sportradar published by BBC in 2013 maintains that the global sports betting landscape is worth between $700 billion and $1 trillion annually. It further opined that around 70 percent of the annual revenues come from soccer, being the most popular and most patronised sport on earth.
The United Kingdom is the biggest sports betting market in Europe, realising a whopping $25 to $30 billion from the industry annually.
The large majority of its sports betting revenues are generated from online betting platforms, representing a shift from what was obtained in previous decades. Also, profits by betting sites controlled by EGBA could be compared to the UK ones. With the above numbers and more, it is crystal clear that fans expend so much on sports, particularly on sports gambling the world over.
Future of sports betting
The unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 all over the world has culminated in a downturn in revenues in most industries globally. Sadly, the betting world has also been hit, with everyone cutting down their expenditures to suit what’s only essential. For instance, in March, the European Gaming Commission expressed concern that global betting revenues could drop by 11 percent in light of the ravaging virus. This has brought about the need for betting sites to re-strategise their business models and patterns to suit the current situation of things in the world.
Conclusion
The sports world has been a great joy to billions of people the world over and continues to do great things for individuals and nations. Therefore, spending on sports is encouraged to be done in moderation at every given point. — Football Talk.
