Abstract
In the Netherlands, sport is rooted in a long-lasting tradition of non-profit private initiatives. These origins are still visible in the great number of sport clubs and volunteers that shape today’s Dutch sport landscape. The last decades however, have seen a growth in commercial initiatives. All in all, sport currently takes up 1% of the Dutch economy and 1.3% of its labour force. Most expenditures in sport are created by households (61%) and by the national and local governments (24%). The 25,000–28,000 sport clubs still represent an important economic factor in the Netherlands, if only for their 56,000 full time equivalents of voluntary work. However, it is not expected that sport in the Netherlands will ever become a full-blown commercial sector. Municipalities, schools and sport clubs will continue to play important roles in shaping the Dutch sport landscape, keeping costs for the final consumer low, and adding to the accessibility and sustainability of the sport system as well as to the social ties between citizens.
Selected country facts (in 2013) | |
|---|---|
Capital | Amsterdam |
Geographical size (km2) | 41,542 |
Population (million) | 16.78 |
GDP (euro per capita) | 38,900 |
GDP (per capita in PPS) | 134 |
Annual net earnings average (€) | 33,162 |
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Notes
- 1.
The fact that there are so many sport clubs in the Netherlands partly has to do with the fact that the Netherlands is a society in which both the catholic and the protestant religion have a strong foothold. Historically, both religions had their own set of institutions. Hence, in any of the Dutch municipalities one would find a catholic football club, a protestant football club and a ‘neutral’ football club. Although with the declining importance of religion this pillar system lost much of its social significance, most institutions that grew out of that system still exist today – accounting for the fact that there are currently some 3149 formally registered football clubs – on average eight per municipality.
- 2.
Football is the sport with the most clubs (3149) and with the most members (1.2 million) (NOC*NSF 2015), well before tennis (1700 clubs, 0.6 million members). Other sports follow on considerable distance.
- 3.
It was not possible to present data for all categories. For some categories, Statistics Netherlands has decided not to disclose numbers (mostly because of insufficient cases and to safeguard the anonymity of the responding units/companies). These data are being reported to Eurostat and are as such integrated into EU-statistics, but without giving specifics on numbers for the Netherlands.
- 4.
The numbers deviate slightly from the numbers as reported by NOC*NSF. The main reason behind this, is that Statistics Netherland also records sport-clubs that are not members of NOC*NSF. Often, these are smaller clubs.
- 5.
This number is somewhat smaller than what the football association KNVB reports itself (see note 3), largely because the football association also takes into consideration clubs that are not football clubs per se, but that do have a football department (like a tennis club with a football section).
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Breedveld, K., Kuipers, A. (2017). THE NETHERLANDS: A Joint Venture of Clubs, Businesses, Municipalities and Schools in Sport. In: Laine, A., Vehmas, H. (eds) The Private Sport Sector in Europe. Sports Economics, Management and Policy, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61310-9_15
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