Sport England has calculated that sport and physical activity generate £107.2 billion in annual social value, including £96.7 billion in wellbeing and £10.5 billion in health and social care savings. This is a serious attempt to measure what happens when people exercise, volunteer and occasionally locate a ball. The figure still cannot explain why the changing room key disappears every Sunday.
The research uses participation, volunteering and health data to put a price on benefits that usually arrive without an invoice. Active lives can reduce illness, GP visits and pressure on mental health services. They can also create the sort of community solidarity that causes six adults to stand outside a locked pavilion while each insists somebody else was holding the key.
Sport England worked with State of Life, Sheffield Hallam University and Manchester Metropolitan University. Together they produced a serious model for measuring wellbeing, prevention and public savings. The Department of Volunteer Mathematics has responded with a smaller model for identifying who brought the oranges, who forgot the tape and who has been saying “I’ll sort it” since October.
“The value of sport is not just a number,” said Lenny Whistle, Chief Keeper of the Lost Bibs. “But a number is useful when the treasurer asks why the village hall needs another bucket.” Whistle then opened a spreadsheet containing 48 tabs, three disputed receipts and a cell labelled “emotional cost of losing 7 to 0”.
The research also identifies a £15.6 billion social cost associated with unequal activity levels. None of this means a Sunday league striker can invoice the Treasury for a sliced clearance, although one player has already submitted a claim for preventative knee damage and is waiting for a reply from someone called Brenda.
That is the awkward brilliance of the calculation. Sport improves lives, prevents illness and brings people together. It also depends on somebody organising the fixtures despite knowing exactly what the group chat will become by Wednesday. The spreadsheet can value the benefits of participation. It has yet to price the volunteer who remains calm after the ninth cancellation.
The key was eventually found in the registration drawer, beneath a form nobody had completed since 2019. The spreadsheet recorded the discovery as high impact community infrastructure. For once, the valuation was conservative, because the key had apparently been running the entire sport sector.
Source: Sport England.
