Anti-Doping in Sport – Thematic Research

Anti Doping in Sport Market Overview

Cheating has always been a concern in sport. With increased commercialization and an ever-increasing amount of money involved, the stakes in sport have never been higher. As a result, the rewards for winning are as high as they have ever been, and with this comes the potential for cheating. While most athletes are likely clean from doping, several major scandals in the last decade have challenged this notion.

What are the industry trends impacting the anti-doping theme?

The industry trends impacting the anti-doping theme are improved testing, morals, financial gain, severity of punishments, societal changes, and sportswashing.

The quality and technology involved in drug testing have improved leaps and bounds over the years. Additionally, more is now known about the effects of different substances, and how they can impact athletes. While drug testing has improved in the number of athletes being caught, many still regard dodging drug tests as too easy. Many NBA players have publicly spoken about how simple it was to avoid positive marijuana tests during their playing careers, despite some of them using it extremely frequently.

What are the major ways through which athletes can earn money?

In modern sports, athletes have several ways of making money. Sponsorship, salaries, and social media are the most prevalent, but all of these can be affected by athletes being caught doping. When an athlete is banned from a sport, they lose their right to compete and their opportunity to secure themselves financially takes a massive hit, as does their reputation.

Sponsorship opportunities

The more successful an athlete tends to be, the more likely they are to receive opportunities to partner with major brands. Money is a significant motivator for many athletes, as their profession allows them to financially secure themselves for a lifetime. For Olympic athletes it is the primary way to stay afloat between the Olympics, as many of these sports do not pay as handsomely as some would like. However, testing positive for banned substances will always have negative connotations due to its association with cheating, and companies who have existing sponsorship deals will act quickly to sever those, so that there is no negative press by association. While athletes can often come back after failed drug tests, their reputation is forever tainted, and this will always make it harder for them to secure sponsorship deals in the future.

Salaries

Any breach of contract that involves doping means that teams have the right to terminate a player’s contract if they are charged with such offenses. This is a failsafe that most teams build into a player’s contract and allows them to distance themselves from a player immediately. Teams would also be hesitant to sign players who have previously failed drug tests due to the negative press associated with such a move. However, this is also offset by a team’s need to win and be successful. The more a team wins, the more money they tend to make, so some teams will jump at the chance to sign a controversial player if they think it could boost their chances of winning, regardless of what anyone else thinks of that player and their reputation.

Social media

Social media has granted athletes the ability to establish their own brand and platform, and many athlete’s endorsement deals are promoted heavily on their social media accounts, due to the sheer number of interactions some of the world’s best-known athletes can accumulate. While the size of a social media account can help an athlete grow their own personal brand, it can also prove to be a double-edged sword. Players have a positive reputation to maintain, which is why many athletes have teams that run their social media accounts so that nothing potentially inflammatory or negative can be posted.

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Market report overview

Scope

• This report provides an overview of the history of doping within sport, and the ongoing challenges that sport faces to eliminate it.
• It identifies the key doping scandals that have unfolded over the last twenty years, and the long-term ramifications of many of these events.
• A look at the other types of doping within sport, including financial doping and match fixing, and how they have affected major sporting events.
• A detailed look at the anti-doping value chain which highlights how athletes can make money and what can be lost through testing positive for a banned substance.

Key Highlights

Baseball has faced declining interest for many years in North America. While the league is still highly profitable and had a solid comeback in terms of attendances throughout 2021, TV viewership for the league in 2021 was 12% down from 2019. Another issue baseball has is the average age of baseball fans, which is far older than most other sports leagues at 57. This highlights how poor a job baseball is doing at attracting younger fans to keep long-term interest in the sport high. While much of the 90s and early 2000s has been tainted by the steroids scandal involving legends such as Barry Bonds, the increased number of home runs and excitement led to a 44% increase in attendance at games, while the league’s revenue increased by 115%. While the answer cannot be to allow doping in baseball, the numbers indicate that the height of baseball’s popularity came during an era where cheating was rife. This puts baseball in a bizarrely unique situation that no other sport has ever faced, and their long-term strategy must focus on drawing younger crowds back to the sport. However, this might be an issue in North America, where basketball and American football are already so popular.

There has long been a debate over whether doping or match-fixing is a greater threat to sport. The author of the McLaren report, which investigated Russian state-sponsored doping, maintained that match-fixing and the manipulation of sporting incomes were greater threats to sporting integrity. A report commissioned by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) found that only 600 of the 14,000 athletes competing in ITF tournaments made enough money to cover their own costs. This leaves a large pool of athletes who are financially vulnerable and open to being targeted by match-fixers.

Reports on the matter have been contradictory, however, as to which is more damaging in sport. A report from 2011 from the British Coventry University’s International Centre for the Business of Sport found that 96% of corruption cases in sport were related to doping, while betting and match-fixing-related corruption accounted for less than 3% of all cases. While these numbers may be skewed differently now, the fact that the last decade has been dominated by constant doping scandals highlights that doping could well be a bigger issue for organized sport.

Sports washing has been a topic of discussion related to financial doping within soccer. There has been an increasing involvement from nations with sketchy human rights records in the world of sport in recent years. Prominent examples include Saudi Arabia, which recently purchased soccer club Newcastle through a government investment fund and has acquired a Grand Prix following an agreement with the FIA. This comes despite widespread condemnation for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, as well as a recent story where 81 Saudi prisoners were executed on a single day. Chelsea fans have recently come under fire for their fervent defense of former owner Roman Abramovich following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the nature of his close relationship with Vladimir Putin.

Reasons to Buy

• For those wanting an in-depth analysis of the lasting damage that doping scandals have on both sports, federations, and athletes.
• Discusses some of the reasons why athletes dope, especially in a world driven by every increasing amounts of financial reward for success.
• GlobalData’s thematic research ecosystem is a single, integrated global research platform that provides an easy-to-use framework for tracking all themes across all companies in all sectors. It has a proven track record of identifying the important themes early, enabling companies to make the right investments ahead of the competition, and secure that all-important competitive advantage.