Middle East emerges as global sports powerhouse, unlocking billions in value and opportunity
UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain drive impact through global hosting, elite talent, and infrastructure development
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – The Middle East is fast becoming one of the most influential players in global sports, according to global management consultancy Kearney's latest report, From passion to profit: unlocking value in sports. With the region experiencing a rapid and sustained growth rate across key segments, it is emerging as a major force in the global sports industry, driving innovation and investment that are reshaping the sector's future.
With the global sports market expected to reach $600+ billion by 2030, the region is driving a transformation fueled by strategic investment, forward-looking policy, and technology-enabled innovation. Saudi Arabia, in particular, is emerging as a global benchmark, combining world-class hosting with systemic reform and sector-wide development.
The momentum is visible across multiple fronts. On the global stage, the region has solidified its reputation as a premier destination for high-profile events: hosting everything from the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the Bahrain Grand Prix to the Dubai Tennis Championships and soon, the Olympic Esports Games in Saudi Arabia. These events are not just about spectacle; they signal a strategic effort to position the region at the heart of global sporting calendars.
Behind the scenes, infrastructure investment is accelerating. Governments across the Middle East are committing billions to develop next-generation stadiums, elite training academies, and integrated digital platforms. Saudi Arabia has allocated significant budgets toward sports infrastructure as part of its Vision 2030 agenda, while the UAE and Qatar continue to grow their ecosystems for high-performance sports and global talent attraction. Following an announcement by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Dubai will host the inaugural World Sports Summit in December 2025, further reinforcing the region's growing influence on the global sports stage.
The region is also pushing hard into digital-native sectors, with esports emerging as a focal point. Saudi Arabia's $38 billion investment to become a global hub for gaming is emblematic of a wider regional effort to tap into younger demographics through streaming, immersive content, and competitive gaming platforms. This youth-centric focus is being mirrored in broader fan engagement strategies across the ME.
Women's participation is another key area of growth. New professional women's football leagues in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are expanding access and visibility, while initiatives across schools and communities are driving higher levels of inclusion. In Saudi Arabia alone, female participation in sport has increased by 150% since the launch of Vision 2030, an indicator of how deeply sports are being woven into the region's social fabric.
Kearney's report highlights five key growth levers that organizations can use capture a greater share of future growth:
Commercial excellence: maximizing revenue across media rights, sponsorship, matchday, merchandise, and talent monetization
Fan engagement and insights: using data to understand fan behavior, personalize content, and increase loyalty and spend
Platform expansion: building or partnering with streaming and digital platforms to deliver richer, more monetizable fan experiences
Technology-driven innovation: applying tech across advertising, ticketing, content, and performance to unlock new revenue streams and efficiencies
Operational efficiency: adopting business best practices to reduce costs, streamline operations, and professionalize structures
'What distinguishes the Middle East is its forward-looking approach. Free from legacy constraints, the region is innovating at scale: from Riyadh's Sports Boulevard and Qatar's integrated World Cup infrastructure to the UAE's growing ecosystem of digital fan platforms,' said Mohamed Hashem, Partner, Sports Lead for MEA at Kearney. 'Rather than replicating Western models, countries across the region are testing new frameworks that align sport with broader economic and societal ambitions.'
The full report is available here: From passion to profit: unlocking value in sports
About Kearney
Since 1926, Kearney has been a leading management consulting firm and trusted partner to three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500 and governments around the world. With a presence across more than 40 countries, our people make us who we are. We work impact first, tackling your toughest challenges with original thinking and a commitment to making change happen together. By your side, we deliver—value, results, impact.
Impact First promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAuDz9ZNinI
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Zawya
26 minutes ago
- Zawya
South Sudan seeks UAE bailout as economy crashes
South Sudan's President has had two official trips to the United Arab Emirates this year, forced by domestic economic and political problems he wants help to tackle. And Abu Dhabi's rising influence in the Horn of Africa means South Sudan could have found support to soften the blow of woes it has faced in Juba. Salvar Kiir left Juba on June 22 and only returned this week on Tuesday, a lengthy trip he said had involved seeking partners to invest in the country's economy. On both occasions, Juba said the visits were to strengthen 'bilateral relations and promoting investment opportunities in South Sudan.'Earlier in February, a dispatch from Juba said President Kiir had travelled to 'discuss co-operation in economic, agricultural, energy and infrastructure sectors.'A presidential spokesperson, David Amuor Majur, told the media ahead of the recent trip that Kiir would meet with a number of investment groups, where he would present 'a compelling case for investment' in South Sudan's key growth sectors. Abu Dhabi did not provide further details on the nature of agreements -- if any -- about the trip. But Juba has argued it was reforming its structures to make it easy for investors. The President's trip was, however, crucial in discussing other issues Juba is concerned with: The war in Sudan, which has seen nearly 200,000 refugees pour into South Sudan. The Sudan military government, out of protest, had severed diplomatic ties with the UAE. It didn't, however, cut entire communication channels, and South Sudan has remained a key contact as a go-between. As such, South Sudan has also carried the burden of war in Sudan, which the UAE has used to elevate its profile. In March, the UAE inaugurated Madhol Field Hospital in the Northern Bahr el Ghazal state in South Sudan, providing a 100-bed capacity, and several clinics to serve some two million people mostly refugees. The UAE had earlier, during a conference on Sudan, pledged $200 million worth of humanitarian aid. The chaos from Sudan war, however, has only piled to the misery. Juba had been looking to the UAE for support to inject some capital into its economy. Read: Kenyans sue Juba over unpaid salaries as public servants' woes riseCivil servants have gone without pay for months, with some even seeking legal redress in jurisdictions outside Juba, especially Nairobi. Programmes for political reforms, part of the 2018 peace deal, have mostly missed deadlines or stalled, according to a recent status report by the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC), a body set up to check violations of the peace deal. In May, South Sudan government spokesperson Martin Lomuro refuted reports in the UAE that Juba had signed an oil deal worth $13 billion, which would have seen it get the money as a loan to be repaid through oil for a 20-year period to the Hamad bin Khalifa Department of Projects, a private firm. Dr Lomuro, however, did not deny that South Sudan was looking for similar financing. South Sudan is the most oil-dependent country in the world, with nearly 98 percent of its revenues coming from oil exports. But some of its 150,000 barrels per day are already sold up to 2026 before extraction. China, Japan, Italy, and Singapore had been the main buyers of the oil via the pipeline to Port Sudan but supplies to Port Sudan for onward export have been hugely disrupted by the war in the north. South Sudan's economy has faced turmoil including political violence. It is expected to lose at least 4.3 percent of the GDP, with an annual inflation of 143 percent. In fact, a recent report by the African Development Bank said 92 percent of its 16 million population now live below two dollars a day – a 55.4 percent rise from the poverty levels 14 years ago, when the country seceded from Sudan. The South Sudan Country Focus 2025 released in Juba on June 25, states that poverty levels in South Sudan have been on the rise at every turn, due to conflict, which has impacted oil production, taken a toll on the economy and affected development indicators. Read: At 92pc, South Sudan sinks deeper into povertyAfDB cites World Bank poverty data, which shows the share of South Sudanese population living below the poverty line increased from 51 percent in 2011 to 82 percent in 2022. The following year, it worsened and became widespread, rising from 84 percent in 2023 to 92 percent in 2024. The International Monetary Fund, however, says the economy is projected to start recovering after oil production resumed following the repair of a pipeline damaged in February 2024 in the war in Sudan, and which had halted exports. Last month, IMF staff and the South Sudanese authorities reached an agreement on a nine-month Staff-Monitored Programme (SMP) to start in August 2025. The SMP will support 'designing and implementing policies and key reforms to strengthen its economic resilience to shocks, enhance macroeconomic stability, restore sustainability, and improve governance and transparency,' a dispatch said. © Copyright 2022 Nation Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Zawya
26 minutes ago
- Zawya
Jordan: New foundations for granting citizenship to investors 'qualitative' step towards modernisation — economists
AMMAN — Economists said in regards to "linking" the new foundations for granting citizenship to the size of the actual investment and the number of jobs confirms the importance of the industry as a development lever. In interviews with the Jordan News Agency, Petra, the economists stressed the need to address some challenges to ensure effective implementation and achieve the desired development returns. The Council of Ministers on Thursday approved new foundations for granting citizenship and residency to investors, in a step aimed at enhancing the business environment and attracting long-term quality investments. Economists pointed out that the "existence" of an integrated programme, including citizenship, and temporary and permanent residency, according to the size and type of investment, will give Jordan a "competitive" advantage in the region, especially in light of the similar facilities provided by competing countries. Quality investments President of the Jordanian Expatriate Businessmen and Women Association (Tawasul) Fadi Majali said that this decision is a 'strategic' step in line with global trends aimed at attracting high-quality investments and encouraging sustainable investment. Majali praised the government's focus on linking citizenship grants to "tangible" production and "direct" employment of Jordanian citizens, which enhances the direct economic impact of any new investment or expansion. He pointed out that the "optimal" impact of this decision requires a structured framework designed to attract "long-term" foreign investments. Majali added that the development of "clear criteria" for permanent residency programmes is essential, which gives legal and moral "stability" to the investors and their families, and is a "flexible" alternative for those who do not wish to obtain citizenship directly or do not meet its requirements. Representative of Leather and Knitting Industries Sector at the Jordan Chamber of Industry (JCI) Ihab Qadri noted that this trend comes in line with national aspirations towards economic modernistion, and is a message of confidence that the Kingdom is open to real investment based on partnership, employment and joint growth. Sustainability Director General of the Jordanian Businessmen Association Tariq Hijazi said that the new foundations and their aspects are generally positive. He considered that the most important characteristic of the foundations is the inclusion of new and previous investors for the issuance of the foundations, which encouraged to ensure the "continuation" of existing projects and limit their liquidation in the event of new investments. In addition to linking the granting of citizenship to a period that achieves the guarantee of the continuation of investment for a period of three years is logical, as this period gives an indication of the success and continuity of the project or not. Hijazi stressed the necessity of designating an official reference authority responsible for monitoring and auditing investors' compliance with the conditions. This can be achieved by establishing a unit within the Ministry of Investment that will oversee these nationality-linked investments for three years through regulatory systems, a practice already implemented in several countries worldwide. Partnership of private and public sectors For his part, investment expert Mohammed Qaryouti stressed that the new foundations illustrate the "actual" translation of the partnership between the public and private sectors. He added that the financial market of any country is the "direct mirror" of regulated economic activities because there are several regulations governing it based on globally accepted principles, and the investor does not need much to assess the feasibility of this activity. They can also monitor and track their investment in traded stocks moment by moment from anywhere in the world, he said. Stock market The privileges offered to investors who wish to obtain Jordanian citizenship through purchasing stocks were introduced, along with supporting privileges in terms of concentration ratio, trading possibility, and the prohibition of profit withdrawal during the first three years. Qaryouti said: "Important productive economic sectors are added to it as stipulated by these instructions because they are developmental projects whose investment value increases over time.' He added that these sectors have a long economic cycle, and each milestone they surpass in their operations increases their investment value, such as warehouses for medicines and pharmaceutical materials, medical and surgical devices and equipment, and their supplies, as well as food logistics services, storage, and large warehouses.
Zawya
27 minutes ago
- Zawya
Kenya: Ambassador Guo Haiyan Attends Events of the 4th Edition Nairobi City Marathon
On July 6, Ambassador Ms. Guo Haiyan was invited to attend the related activities of the 4th Edition Nairobi City Marathon. Accompanied with PS for Sports Mr. Elijah Mwangi, President of the Kenya Athletics and officials from UNEP, she signaled the start of the race and presented awards to the winners. First held in 2022, the Nairobi City Marathon has attracted over 17,000 runners from more than 70 countries and regions, including about 300 Chinese, with its main course on the Nairobi Expressway, a key project of the "Belt and Road Initiative" built by a Chinese company. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Kenya.
