ANALYSIS OF THE SPORTS SERVICES MARKET IN SLOVENIA

This paper presents a study of the sports services market in Slovenia, besides the educational system, based on an analysis of several sources of public data: the income structure of sports organizations involving a sample of 8,092 organizations, the population's consumption expenditure on sport using a representative sample and the public expenditure on sport according to reports about the realization of the national programme for sport in Slovenia. The research reveals that the total expenditure on sport in Slovenia in the studied year of 2005 amounted to 1.93% of GDP. In the structure of expenditure, the largest share of 85% is taken by private money (corporations, households), whereas public funding (state budgeting, local authorities, lottery money, EU funding) amounts to slightly less than 15%. The overall amount of expenditure was constantly rising until 2005 due to a stronger economic growth in Slovenia. Nevertheless, the amount spent on sport lags behind the increase in the population's consumption expenditure on the so-called leisure industry, resulting in sport losing the market share within the industry. The average Slovenian household spends 2.88% of the family budget on sport, equalling EUR 496 per year. Two-thirds of these funds are spent on sports products and one-third on sports services. More and more sports services are being offered by the private sector, although the non-governmental sports sector created 70.6% of the total income of sports organizations. Left unchallenged, the weaknesses of the Slovenian sports services market could become a real obstacle to the further successful development of sport; therefore, some countermeasures to improve and form new sports services are presented in the last part of the paper.