Sports & Recreation

Owning a professional sports team has come to be a status symbol among the mega rich. In 2024, Steve Ballmer, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, had a net worth of over 121 billion U.S. dollars, making him the richest sports team owner worldwide. Ballmer, who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft for 14 years, became the Los Angeles Clippers owner in 2014, purchasing the franchise for around two billion U.S. dollars.

With an estimated valuation of over 20 billion U.S. dollars, Liberty Media was the most valuable sports empire worldwide as of 2023. Originally founded as a media corporation, the company acquired ownership stakes in Formula One as well as the MLB franchise Atlanta Braves. In 2022, the company was also recognized among the largest media corporations in the world.

The Los Angeles Clippers are a basketball franchise in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Based in Los Angeles, the professional basketball team competes in the Western conference of the NBA. In the 2022/23 season, a total of almost 721 thousand fans attended Clippers games at the Crypto.com Arena, generating gate receipts of about 51 million U.S. dollars that season. The franchise value of the Los Angeles Clippers increased by nearly 20 percent in 2023 over the previous year.

During a 2022 survey of members of Gen Z aged between 13 and 25 in the United States, 53 percent identified themselves as either casual or avid NFL fans. Meanwhile, one fifth of Gen Z respondents were fans of Formula 1.

The size of the global online gambling and betting industry amounted to 85.62 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. This has been forecast to rise to 133.59 billion U.S. dollars by 2029. In comparison, the market size of the global sports betting and lottery industry was valued at roughly 244 billion U.S. dollars as of March 2024. Overall, the global sports betting industry constituted more than 200 thousand employees and approximately 22 thousand businesses.

In 2022, over 25 million individuals engaged in sports betting in the United States, highlighting the prevalence of the activity in the North American country. Moreover, this figure was forecast to increase by 47 percent by 2025. Overall, the total revenue from sports betting in the U.S. amounted to 11.04 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, denoting an increase of approximately 46 percent from the previous year. Meanwhile, DraftKings was the most popular sports betting website in the U.S. as of July 2023. 

A lottery is a form of gambling where participants purchase numbered tickets with the aim of matching those numbers with lots, which are drawn randomly at a later date. Established in 1994, the National Lottery is a nationwide version of the activity that is regulated by the Gambling Commission of the United Kingdom. Between April 2022 and March 2023, over eight billion British pounds worth of National Lottery tickets were sold, which was slightly higher than the figure reported in the period immediately prior. Meanwhile, more than 4.6 billion British pounds were available as prize money for potential winners of the National Lottery in the same period. 

Cristiano Ronaldo was the highest earning soccer player in the world in 2024, being paid around 260 million U.S. dollars a year. The bulk of this sum came from on-field income, such as salary and bonuses. Meanwhile, Lionel Messi earned around 135 million U.S. dollars per year, with a larger share coming from off-pitch income.

Messi and Ronaldo have been compared throughout their careers, with both players having exceptional ability. On the one hand, Ronaldo is the record goal scorer in the UEFA Champions League and holds many of the individual records in the competition. However, Messi has the one medal that Ronaldo could never win: the World Cup. The Argentinian lifted the famous trophy in 2022 after an exhilarating tournament, in which he scored seven goals.

Ronaldo is undoubtedly the most well-known player to ever play in the Saudi Pro League, earning a salary more than most people can only dream of. Outside of soccer, Saudi Arabia’s investment in sporting events has been substantial, and human rights organizations have accused the country of using sport to whitewash – or sportswash – human rights abuses. Following his move to Al-Nassr, Amnesty International called on Ronaldo to bring attention to human rights issue in the country. Ronaldo, meanwhile, said he wanted to provide a different vision of the club and country.

In 2023, the United States’ Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World) was visited by over 17.7 million people, making it the most visited amusement park worldwide. Meanwhile, the second most visited park was Disneyland in Anaheim California.
 

As of 2023, Chugach State Park in Anchorage, Alaska, was the largest city park in the United States by a long shot, spanning 464,318 acres. Second in the ranking was the Great Dismal Swamp in the Coastal Plain Region of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, at 113 thousand acres. 

Most parks in the U.S. are owned by the municipality, state, county, regional agency, or the federal government. Both McDowell Sonoran Preserve and South Mountain Preserve are part of the state park system along with most of the parks in the ranking. One of the more well-known park authorities is the National Park Service (NPS) – an agency of the federal government. Blue Ridge Parkway was the most visited NPS park in 2023 alongside many other well-known U.S. parks. 

Parks in the U.S. are often called a variety of names, just a few of which are: forest, reserve, preserve and wildlife management area. Sometimes the differences between parks in the U.S. can vary massively from monuments to expansive woodland. The Lincoln Memorial made the ranking of the most visited city parks in the U.S., while this may not seem like it comes under the classification of a ‘park’, it is cared for by the National Park Service.

Formula 1's overall prize pool for 2023 amounted to around 2.2 billion U.S. dollars, which was more than many other major sporting events across the world. Meanwhile, the prize pool for the UEFA Champions League in the 2022/23 season stood at 2.032 billion dollars, while the LIV Golf tour had an overall prize fund of 405 million U.S. dollars in 2023.

The size of the wellness market worldwide stood at 6.32 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023. This figure was projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.3 percent, reaching an estimated 8.99 trillion U.S. dollars by 2028.

What are the leading regions for the wellness market?

In 2023, North America emerged as the leading region in the global wellness market, with the region accounting for over 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars of the global market. Asia Pacific and Europe secured second and third positions, respectively. Delving deeper into North America, the wellness industry in the United States outpaced Canada's market size by approximately 1.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2022.

How large is the wellness tourism segment?

In 2023, the global wellness tourism segment accounted for 830 billion U.S. dollars of the market size of the wellness industry. The countries with the highest wellness tourism expenditure in 2022 were the United States, Germany, and France. Additionally, when considering the number of wellness tourism trips taken by travelers globally in 2022, Europe emerged as the leader, with over 300 million wellness trips taken by travelers in Europe. 

The global wellness economy was estimated at a value of around 6.3 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023. Of this revenue, over 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars was generated in personal care and beauty, while the global wellness tourism market was estimated at 830 billion U.S. dollars.

How large is the beauty and personal care market?

Since 2020, the global beauty and personal care market has experienced year-to-year growth. In 2024, the market recorded an estimated total revenue exceeding 630 billion U.S. dollars. Notably, the personal care segment contributed significantly to this revenue, closely followed by the skin care segment. Additionally, when considering countries with the highest beauty and personal care revenue, the United States ranked first, followed by China, which had approximately 30 billion U.S. dollars less in revenue compared to the United States in 2023. 

In what region is wellness tourism most popular?

In 2022, Europe stood out as the global leader in wellness tourism, with over 300 million trips recorded. Asia-Pacific and North America secured the second and third positions, respectively. Additionally, Europe led the ranking in the number of spa facilities worldwide, having approximately 9.6 thousand more spas than Asia-Pacific. However, in terms of the number of thermal and mineral spring facilities worldwide, Asia-Pacific took the lead with almost 23 thousand such facilities in 2022.