London 2012: How much funding should Olympic sports receive?

Filed under: Features, Thoughts on January 29, 2009

The BBC is reporting that eight Olympic sports have had their London 2012 funding cut following an overall budget shortfall of £50 million. In total, eight Olympic sports have had budgets cut by 50% or more with Shooting (-75.5%), Wrestling (-68.1%) and Fencing (-59%) hit hardest.

Before I say anything more, I’d like to state where I stand on these matters. I am, overwhelmingly, in favour of the London 2012 Olympic Games. I do not disagree with the funding expectations of athletes or with the investment in sporting and public infrastructure it requires. What’s more, I have little doubt that there is indeed, a correlation between a nation’s investment in sport and its Olympic medal success. After all, I know this to be true in motor sport.

The table below summarises the largest funding cuts.

London 2012 Funding cuts (Source: BBC)
Sport	Beijing budget (£m)	Beijing medal target	Beijing medals	Cost per medal (£m)	London budget(£m)	% increase
Handball	2.99	0	0	-	1.448	-51.6
Table Tennis	2.53	0	0	-	1.207	-52.3
Water Polo	3.15	0	0	-	1.45	-54.0
Volleyball (inc beach)	4.11	0	0	-	1.754	-57.3
Weightlifting	1.69	0	0	-	0.717	-57.6
Fencing	3.07	0	0	-	1.26	-59.0
Wrestling	2.13	0	0	-	0.68	-68.1
Shooting	5.06	2	0	-	1.225	-75.8

Let’s take Fencing as an example.

For the Beijing 2008 Olympics, Team GB fielded three athletes: Martina Emanuel, Richard Kruse and Alex O’Connell. They were allocated £3.07 million for the games and their efforts yielded zero medals.

For London 2012, Team GB will be allocated £1.26 million, representing a 59% decrease when compared with the previous games.

Is £1.26 million too little or too much? If in London 2012, Team GB were to again field three athletes, it would represent a cost of roughly £400,000 per athlete, or £100,000 per athlete per year. Or, if they were to double the number of athletes (six), pay each athlete a salary of £20,000 per year, they would still have £780,000 to spend on coaching, promotion and facilities over the four year period.

That doesn’t seem so bad to me.

So here’s the question: how much public funding should sports really receive? Should there be a relationship between the level of funding a sport receives, its contribution to the UK economy and the level of participation both in terms of audience and competitors? If this is the case, is it right that grass-roots motor sport receives little, if any public (or lottery) funding, especially considering as an industry, it contributes an estimated £6 billion to the UK economy?

I don’t think for one moment that public money should fund the career of any young racing driver. However, shouldn’t there be more balance? If that same £1.26 million allocated to Fencing over a four year period was also allocated to motor sports – what impact could that have on grass-roots participation?

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