Brussels – In 2023, there were 5,370 European companies producing sports goods, with a total turnover of €8 billion. According to the latest figures published by Eurostat on the occasion of the European Week of Sport, Italy is the leading EU country, with €2.1 billion in turnover and 448 manufacturers.
The sector employs 1.8 million people in the European Union, accounting for 0.9 per cent of total employment. Between 2024 and 2025, employees in the sector rose by 8.1 per cent, an increase of around 150,000 people. This figure includes both those working in sports-related activities and those in sports-related professions outside the sector.
However, the sector remains predominantly male: in 2025, men accounted for 56.3 per cent of employees, compared with 43.7 per cent for women. In Italy, the gap is even more pronounced, with men accounting for around 58 per cent of those employed in sport. At the other end of the scale is Estonia, where women make up 53.8 per cent, while in Belgium men account for 69.9 per cent.
The European sports sector is also a particularly young one: 36.2 per cent of the workforce are aged between 15 and 29, accounting for more than double the proportion of young people in total employment, which stands at 17.1 per cent. The proportion exceeds 50 per cent in Finland (53.4 per cent) and 40 per cent in seven other countries, while it falls to 14.4 per cent in Lithuania. University education also shows a significant gender imbalance: in higher education – universities, vocational courses – there are around 269,000 students studying sport, and for every five men there are just two women.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
