Admittedly, the growth in sport employment is from a low base. Of the Top-10 listed below only, "Customer Service Managers and Supervisors" and "Quality and Regulatory Professionals" had smaller totals employed compared to the "Sport and Fitness Occupations" as of 2015q1. That said, the growth in employment is inline with the growth in other sport areas. There has been a significant growth in Level-8 educational courses (as noted previously on this blog here). There has also been a growth in the printed media's interest in the financial sport (as noted previously on this blog here). In this respect it is worth noting that last month, the Sunday Business Post won an award for the Business of Sport pages (here).
The growth refers only to the numbers employed. It does not refer to earnings. One wonders if any of these numbers refer to sports agents. This week it was reported that agents were paid £130m in 2014 by English football clubs (here). I'm guessing that the vast majority that make up the Irish statistics are not sharing in similar largesse.