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Sport is beneficial to both health and social relationships, but its economic significance is growing. A 2018 study shared the share of sport-related Gross Domestic Product within the EU is 2.12 % and amounts to € 279.7 bn. Furthermore, the share of sport-related employment amounts to 2.72 % of total EU employment, equivalent to 5,666,195 persons. Despite the economic and financial crisis between the two studies (data from 2005 and from 2012), the sport sector has continued to grow.

As a relatively new sector, sport is generally regarded as being an early adopter of new ideas and innovations. Sport can help specific business sectors to develop, depending on the characteristics of sport demand and supply in a specific country.

To prevent separate and similar developments in different countries, a strong need has arisen to team up the initiatives on a more European level and improve trans-national visibility on research and business creation. The main bottlenecks and limits to research, development and innovation in the EU sports market are:

1. Fragmentation of research (technology and human factors) and the insufficiency of targeted research;
2. Limited research and innovative power;
3. Lack of a long-term vision for innovation;
4. Insufficient new business creation;
5. Too great a focus on national rather than European approaches in R&D.