Italy: Dichotomies Between Professionalism vs. Voluntarism and Commercialisation vs. Non-profit in the Sport Sector

During the last decades, not differently from the majority of the European countries, Italy has developed a dynamic and efficient sport system based on around 65,000 organisations and a work force of more than 860,000 people1 (Centro Studi Investimenti Sociali [CENSIS], 2008). The sport sector creates about the 1.6% of the Gross Domestic Product (CONI, 2012), which includes 3% of the satellite activities (BNL, 2013). The private sector plays a crucial role with an economic contribution that can be estimated in 53.2 billion euros (CONI, 2012). A rather similar figure is reported by a European study conducted by the Austrian Institute for Sports Economics (SpEA, 2012). In this study sport represented 0.76% of the Italian Gross Value Added and provided employment to 1.21% and 329,860 people respectively when sport activities and services are defined according to the Vilnius’ broad definition of sport (SpEA, 2012). The analysis of the available data shows that in 2013, the private sport sector in Italy generated revenues for over 10 billion euros and gave occupation to more than 103,000 people (ISTAT, 2013b). The predominant market is the retail sale of sport goods that in Italy counted around 10,000 companies and almost 4.5 million euros of revenue in 2013. Broadly, the private sport sector is a growing economy, representing 0.62% of Gross Domestic Product in 2013 (calculation based on the available data from ISTAT, 2013b and Eurostat, 2015). The recent reorganisation of the Italian sport system along with the changes in laws and regulations have prompted renewed attention to the knowledge of what works in terms in getting the private sector further growing. As a consequence of the global economic and financial crisis, the Italian economy and public finance situation deteriorated significantly with negative effects also for the sport system. The combination of the global crisis with the changes in the legal framework has put the Italian sport system in a period of profound transformation. Therefore, sport organisations are reshaping their missions, their organisational structures and the way they interact with the main actors of the sector such as CONI and national sport federations. The magnitude and inherent tensions associated with these changes have created a context that many consider to represent a climate of crisis in the private sport sector. In this light, the Italian government has tried to indirectly support the growth of the sport system through a fiscal policy in favour of the sport organisations through the provision of different forms of fiscal exemptions. However, there is the necessity for further interventions, especially in the private sectors that, regardless of the potential, in terms of absolute numbers (e.g., revenues and number of employees), still represent a small fraction of the Italian businesses in general. A growth potential can be foreseen for instance in the labour market. In Italy, the number of people employed in the sport sectors is still limited compared to the otherEuropean Countries (Kleissner & Grohal, 2015). An enlargement of the labour market, if supported, might offer new opportunities for growth both for the private sector and the sport sector in general with positive effects expected for the entire Italian economic system. From the scientific perspective, there is a need to further analyse this sector in the Italian context from the social and economic points of view. The available literature mainly focuses on legal, management, marketing and corporate social responsibility aspects. Despite their importance, they are not sufficient to fully understand the impact of such a relevant sector on the society. Until recently, rigorous analyses of the sport sector have been rare in Italy. Although there is no question about the importance of profit making sport actors, this sector has received less attention in the sport-related research. This is particularly apparent in the area of finance, private sector and labour market development. The quantification of private sport activity in Italy by number of businesses, employees, turnover, beneficiaries of services and other similar parameters represents an important analytical step to measure the fundamental aspects of the sector and at the same time to understand the main trends.