The Private Sport Sector in Europe by Antti Laine & Hanna Vehmas

Author:Antti Laine & Hanna Vehmas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Private Sport Sector in the New Democracy

There are three main areas identified in which the private sport sector has had space to emerge in Hungary. First, as previously mentioned, the priorities and areas of state sport policies have influenced the development and the functions of the private sector in sport, thus the private sport sector has found its playing field in segments, which were not included in the central sport policy or funding. Accordingly, it was demonstrated that with some exceptional periods such as the state socialist era, the private sport sector in Hungary has always been present, but its scope and forms of function have been adapted to the actual social, political, and economic environments. Therefore, its share in the public-civil-private triangle has changed under those influences. For example, the previously mentioned joint-stock companies in fencing or gymnastics and movement artist studios for women around 1930s, together with leisure sport activities offered by fitness clubs and development of running and running events were launched by the 1990s to demonstrate the paths taken by private companies.

Street running events, for example, were initially organised by individuals connected to both civil organisations and municipality sport committees. As Perényi (2015) states, during the first era of the development of running in the beginning of the 1980s, clubs and municipalities remained the centre organizers and promoters of running and running events in Hungary with the focus on the capital of the country. Accordingly, the first marathon race was organized in 1984 in Budapest by the Sports Committee of the Budapest Municipality, and the event’s title sponsor was also a state-owned travel agency. However, following the political and economic changes and part of the privatisation processes, in 1991, the exclusive rights of organising the Budapest marathon was incorporated into a private event management firm, to a sport business named Budapest Sport Office, one of the first of its own kind. The role of the private sector in this event was influenced by the withdrawal of state funding from operating state businesses and their privatization causing their withdrawal from supporting sport. In the commercialisation of such events, this process created space for international companies entering the Eastern European market, such as Nike or Ikea; thus, the private sector’s related share has grown in leisure sports.

From the new millennium onwards, the number of events and event organizers has grown in running and the profit making logic has become present with growing extent. On one hand, private event management firms were formed with the focus on running or on other leisure sport events such as fitness or aerobic. On the other hand, civil organisations (clubs and federations) also use event organisation as a tool for generating income to supplement with funding their core sport services offered to members and to cover expenses of daily operation or wages of administrative staff and coaches. (Perényi, 2015.) Other areas of leisure sport, such as the fitness clubs, fitness trainers’ training, mass fitness, and aerobics events were also open for the private sport sector, which clearly created opportunities for companies (Szabó, 2012).

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