The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST, Minister CHAE Hwi-young) announced the key findings of the “Sports Industry Survey” for 2024 on January 8 (Thursday). The Survey is a nationally approved statistical survey conducted pursuant to Article 7 of the Sports Industry Promotion Act and Article 18 of the Statistics Act. Since its launch in 2010, the survey has been conducted annually to assess the scale and business conditions of the sports industry. The 2024 survey covered a sample of 14,000 businesses selected from a total of 131,764 nationwide, using a combination of in-person visits, fax, and email.

Revenue up 4.5%, workforce up 6.7%, and number of businesses up 4.4% year-on-year

The sports industry revenue for 2024 reached KRW 84.7 trillion, marking a 4.5% increase from KRW 81 trillion in the previous year and setting a new all-time high. After contracting during the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry has now recorded five consecutive years of growth since 2020. The number of employees rose to 489,000, up 6.7% year-on-year, while the number of businesses increased by 4.4% to 131,764.

By sector, sports goods recorded the highest growth rate at 6.4%, followed by sports services at 3.6% and sports facilities at 2.6%.

Within the goods sector, sports-related non-store retail (online sales) expanded by 15.8%, sports and athletic equipment retail by 8.0%, and sports apparel retail by 7.4%, with the distribution segment leading revenue growth. In manufacturing, sports apparel manufacturing grew by 7.2%, sports footwear manufacturing by 6.4%, and sports and athletic equipment manufacturing by 6.0%.

In the services sector, sports agency services (athlete management) recorded a sharp increase of 48.3% , followed by professional sports teams (including professional baseball and soccer clubs) at 28.2%, sports travel services (such as overseas golf tours) at 13.1%, and other sports education institutions (including yoga and Pilates studios) at 11.2%.

Within the facilities sector, operations of other sports facilities (such as tennis courts and table tennis halls) increased by 18.0%, swimming pool operations by 13.9%, multipurpose sports facilities by 13.0%, bowling alleys by 10.2%, and golf driving ranges by 8.5%.

Record-high financial support budget allocated for 2026 to foster tech companies and support AI and digital transformation

MCST has allocated a record-high financial support budget of KRW 288.3 billion (KRW 248 billion in loans and KRW 40.3 billion in funds) to ease the industry’s financial constraints and stimulate investment. In addition, a new sports tech fund (with KRW 7 billion in government contributions) has also been established within the sports industry fund to intensively foster tech companies. The research and development (R&D) budget will also be significantly expanded (from KRW 800 million in 2025 to KRW 6.5 billion in 2026) to support AI adoption and digital transformation across the sports sector. Detailed survey results will be available on the MCST website (www.mcst.go.kr) in January.