In modern times sport is a global phenomenon. Everyone can have some form of access to it and sport provides many with jobs and also provides jobs and hobbies for people worldwide. In Britain today the scale of the sports industry is massive. Everyone can have some impact on it at some level whether this is playing for a local team, paying to go and watch your favourite club or even by simply watching sports at home. According to the following source (http://www.prospects.ac.uk/industries_sport_leisure_overview.htm) the sports industry provides 621,000 people with jobs at the moment and these jobs range from coaching and physiotherapists to teachers and the media.
The sports industry employs 2% of all UK workers. In the UK, sport generates 12000 million a year; 2% of the National Economy. Many people often play sports regularly; a survey by “Sports England” revealed that 6.82 million play sport at least three times a week. These stats show how important sport is to the UK public and also the scale of it in Great Britain. Sport in the UK is structured in the three following ways; The Voluntary sector, the Public Sector and the Private sector. The voluntary sector includes people who play for a local club team or anyone who plays their chosen sport voluntarily without getting paid.
Other examples of this are youth groups as often at such groups sports may be played and the people who have volunteered their time to organise these groups are part of the voluntary sector, as well as those who turn up to these groups and participate in these sports. The public sector involves agencies who may offer sport to people for lower prices or maybe even for free in order to boost participation. Examples of these agencies include the Department of Culture Media and Sport and the Sports Council for Wales. One example of how the Department of Culture Media and Sport helps is by offering the public free swimming sessions as well as advice on where they can go to swim for free.
The Sports Council for Wales do similar things in Wales and arranges a wide range of activities to people in order to get people more interested in sport and boost participation numbers. The private sector is run for profit and the government has no real control over it. This sector in sport is the sector involving commercial companies who pump money into their chosen sport in order to make a profit. This sector is usually involved with professional and elite performers at the top end of sport as the main concern here is performance and profit over participation examples of brands in the private sector are Nike, Adidas, Powerade and Kooga.
Due to the scale of sport in the UK, it is readily available for pretty much anyone who wishes to participate in it. Depending on peoples age or situation different clubs and schemes allow them to continue to take part. In football, there are many agencies helping each level of the sport to develop which are split into 4 levels; Foundation which is generally aimed at primary and junior school children where the aim is to provide basic skills in sport such as catching or throwing to promote future participation in sport, Sport England’s scheme is called Active Schools.
The second level of the sports develop continuum is participation which is aimed at all ages; especially on those of whom done regularly participate in sport. The overall aim is to encourage people to participate in sport frequently, Sport England have another scheme for this which is called Active communities. The next level is performance which its provision is for selected participants who are regarded as talented performers, the aim is to improve their skills, their knowledge if sport and to identify performers who can gain representative honours, there are various county schemes for this, for example where I live there are regularly district rugby trials annually.
The final level of the sports development continuum is excellence; its provision is for future and current performers in which its aim is to prepare performers for championship and international competition, to support top athletes for example funding may be needed for training and also to support the athletes with great potential, UK Sport’s scheme for this is the World Class Programme. After thoroughly researching the provision of sport in the UK today I have come to the conclusion that it is constantly increasing every day, and that the sports development continuum allows us a nation to really achieve our potential.