The Economics of Sport
  • Sports Economics
  • About
  • Workshop
  • Media
  • Selected Publications
  • Book Reviews
  • A Primer on Gaelic Games
  • Upcoming Events
  • Education
  • Resources & Links
  • Data

Sport Coverage in the UK Major Party Manifestos for the 2017 General Election

19/5/2017

 
By Stephen Brosnan

Previously, Declan Jordan wrote about the inclusion of sport in the manifesto of various political parties in the run up to the 2016 general election in Ireland. The United Kingdom general election is scheduled to take place on 8 June 2017. As such, I thought it may be interesting to look at the coverage of sport in the manifestos of the three major political parties in the UK – the Conservative Party, Labour and Liberal Democrats.

Sport participation is generally considered to provide a multitude of positive benefits to individuals and society including but not limited to (i) reductions in crime (ii) increases in social capital and social integration (iii) improvements in health through physical activity and (iv) improvements in education outcomes. Studies examining the impact of sport participation on happiness (Huang & Humphreys, 2012), future income (Dewenter & Giessing, 2015), labour market outcomes (Lechner, 2015) have generally found sport participation to provide societal benefits. However, despite these widely held beliefs regarding the positive impact of sport participation on education, health and social issues, the major political parties in the UK tend to allocate very little by way of interest in developing and outlining strategic objectives for sporting activities, at least in their election manifestos.

Table 1 Words in UK Major Party Manifesto Dedicated to Sport
Picture
Source: Sporting Intelligence (2017)
Table 1 shows the word counts attributed to sport by the major political parties in each of the last three general elections.

The Labour Party have dedicated 206 words to sport in their manifesto which generally is aimed at decreasing the cost of Premier League matches and advocating supporters trusts appointing at least two directors on the board of British football clubs.

The Liberal Democrats allocate 29 words dedicated to objectives for sport. These are related to introducing ‘safe standing’ at football clubs, requiring the Sports Grounds Safety Authority to prepare guidance for implementing this change.

The Conservative Party, the current governing party and expected by most to comfortably win the general election, have no words attributed to the development of sport in their manifesto for government.

This apparent lack of interest towards sport and sporting activities is perhaps surprising firstly given that the United Kingdom is considered by many to be a leading sporting nation and secondly given the many societal benefits that can spillover from sporting activities.

Recently, I have explored the impact of sports participation on crime in 323 local authorities in England. The results of the working paper indicate that sport participation reduces crime rates for both property and person crimes in English local authorities between 2012 and 2015. The findings suggest that sports participation has a stronger effect on person crimes as opposed to property crimes. The results show that a 10% increase in sports participation leads to a fall in person crimes of 1.30 and 1.56% while a 10% increase in sports participation rates leads to a fall in property crimes of between 0.64 and 0.73%.

Comments are closed.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    About

    This website was founded in July 2013.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    American Football
    Athletics
    Baseball
    Basketball
    Behavioural Economics
    Boxing
    Broadcasting
    Competitive Balance
    Cricket
    Cycling
    Darts
    David Butler
    Declan Jordan
    Drugs
    Ed Valentine
    Epl
    Esports
    Expenditure
    F1
    Fifa World Cup
    Finances
    Funding
    Gaa
    Gaelic Games
    Gambling
    Game Theory
    Gary Burns
    Geography
    Golf
    Greyhound Racing
    Guest Posts
    Horse Racing
    Impact Studies
    John Considine
    John Eakins
    League Of Ireland
    Location
    Media
    Mls
    Mma
    Olympics
    Participation
    Paul O'Sullivan
    Premier League
    Regulation
    Research
    Robbie Butler
    Rugby
    Simpsonomics
    Snooker
    Soccer
    Spatial Analysis
    Sporting Bodies
    Stephen Brosnan
    Swimming
    Taxation
    Teaching
    Technology
    Tennis
    Transfers
    Uefa
    Ufc
    World Cup
    Wwe

Related

The website is not formally affiliated to any institution and all of the entries represent the personal views and opinions of an individual contributor. The website operates on a not-for-profit basis. For this reason we decline all advertisement opportunities. 

Contact

To contact us email sportseconomics2013@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @SportEcon.