Government is looking at sport differently.
When MPs return to Westminster next week, one of the first pieces of legislation they will debate is the Sporting Events Bill.
First announced in May’s King’s Speech, the Bill is designed to make the UK better equipped to attract and deliver major international sporting events.
But look beyond the legislation and something more interesting is happening.
Government is exploring what an Olympic and Paralympic Games in the North of England in the 2040s could deliver. And just last week, it put fresh emphasis behind its Stadium Regeneration Accelerator, with the Ministers for Growth and Sport working with mayors to use major sports projects to unlock jobs, investment and housing.
Put those announcements together and the language is striking. Sport is increasingly being discussed in terms of growth, regeneration, investment and Britain’s international competitiveness.
That represents an opportunity for sport.
Perhaps the more interesting question is no longer what government can do for sport, but what sport can help government achieve.
Events need to work for places
We have already seen glimpses of what this different relationship might look like.
Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games this summer were born out of necessity. Victoria had originally been due to host the Games across regional Australia but withdrew in 2023 as projected costs escalated dramatically. It raised a much bigger question about whether the traditional economics of hosting major multi-sport events still worked.
Glasgow’s answer was deliberately different: fewer sports, a compact footprint and extensive use of venues and infrastructure the city already had.
Rather than building a city around a major sporting event, the event was designed around the city.
Birmingham offers the other side of the equation. Alexander Stadium was extensively redeveloped for the 2022 Commonwealth Games as part of wider investment in Perry Barr. Four years later it hosted this summer’s European Athletics Championships, showing how investment prompted by one major event can create an asset with a much longer life for both sport and place.
Neither provides a blueprint that can simply be replicated elsewhere. But together they point towards a different way of thinking.
The old model was often to win an event, build the infrastructure and then ask what legacy it might leave behind. The opportunity now is to start with the needs and assets of a place and ask how sport can help unlock their potential.
The strongest case isn’t always a sporting one
What Glasgow and Birmingham demonstrate is that the value of sport increasingly extends far beyond what happens on the pitch, track or court.
A stadium is not simply somewhere to play. Done well, it can anchor regeneration, attract investment, create jobs and provide a focal point for a community. A major event can bring visitors and global attention to a place, while creating opportunities around participation, infrastructure and economic growth.
The same is true of sports organisations themselves.
Clubs and governing bodies occupy a position in their communities that few conventional businesses can replicate. They bring together supporters, commercial partners, investors, policymakers and places around a shared institution. That wider footprint changes how we should think about investment in sport.
The strongest case for investing in sport isn’t always a sporting one. Increasingly, it also lies in the wider value sport can create around it.
That doesn’t mean attaching an ambitious regeneration or social-impact claim to every stadium development or major event. The benefits need to be credible, measurable and rooted in what a place actually needs.
But where that alignment exists, sport can make a much bigger case for itself, not simply as something worth investing in, but as a platform capable of unlocking investment and delivering wider economic and social value.
Sport needs to think beyond sport
For clubs, governing bodies and rights holders, this means understanding the wider ecosystem in which they operate. Supporters remain at the heart of it, but so too are communities, investors, commercial partners, local authorities and the places they represent.
The opportunity lies in understanding where those interests overlap.
A club considering the future of its stadium should think not only about capacity, hospitality and matchday revenue, but about the role that development could play in the surrounding place.
A governing body looking to bring a major event to Britain should understand not only the sporting proposition, but what it could offer a host city, commercial partners and local communities.
None of this changes the fundamental purpose of a sports organisation. It requires leaders to think more expansively about the assets, relationships and influence they already have.
The organisations that do this best can build partnerships around shared ambitions rather than individual asks.
The opportunity is not to make sport something it isn’t. It is to better understand the value of what it already is.
Britain’s opportunity
Britain already has many of the ingredients needed to take advantage of this shift: world-class sporting institutions, established venues, passionate audiences and a track record of delivering major events.
But the bigger opportunity goes beyond winning the next event or building the next stadium. It is about recognising sport as an asset capable of contributing to places, communities and the economy far beyond the sporting calendar.
Government increasingly appears to recognise that value. Sports organisations need to become better at understanding and demonstrating it too.
The opportunity isn’t simply to persuade government to invest more in sport. It’s to demonstrate what Britain can achieve through it. Get in touch with us here to discuss how Cavendish can help strengthen your public affairs and stakeholder engagement strategy.