Although ticket prices for all sporting events have increased in recent years, fans are still willing to pay more. However, American sports fans still spend far more money buying tickets than any other nation.
According to data provided by SportsLens.comAmerican sports fans are expected to spend as much as $13 billion buying tickets to watch live games in stadiums, which is two and a half times more than the British, Chinese, Japanese and Canadians combined.
Sports fans in the US spend an average of $300 on sports tickets, 3 times the global average
Due to rising sports ticket prices, revenue in the global sports events market increased by almost 60% between 2017 and 2022, from USD 17.3 billion to USD 27.2 billion worldwide. This includes revenue from online ticket sales for all professional sporting events, from football, basketball, baseball and other ball-related sports to golf, tennis, Formula 1 and NASCAR. The US sports ticketing market played a major role in this revenue growth.
According to Statista Digital Market Insights, in 2023, sports fans around the world will spend nearly $29 billion buying tickets to watch live sports matches in stadiums, 45% of which will come from the United States. As the largest single sports events market, the US has seven times the revenue of the UK, whose sports fans are expected to spend $1.83 billion watching live games this year. As the third largest market, China will generate revenues of USD 1.68 billion. It is followed by Japan and Canada with USD 1.15 and USD 1.11 billion, respectively.
Statista predicts that global sports ticketing revenue will grow by 8% over the next two years and reach USD 31.2 billion in 2025. The US market is expected to grow by 6.7% and close to 14 billion USD in revenue.
The Statista study also found that American sports fans will spend an average of $298.8 on sports tickets this year, three times the global average of $96.5. Europeans will pay around $140 to attend sporting events, while Chinese will spend six times less. The UK is the only European country close to the US when it comes to buying tickets to sporting events. In 2023, Brits are expected to spend an average of $228 on sports tickets, $70 less than American sports fans.
One in six people buying tickets to sporting events in 2023 is from the United States
In addition to revenue growth, the sports events market has also seen a significant increase in the number of people buying tickets to watch live matches in stadiums. Since 2017, over 41 million people have started buying tickets for sports events online, bringing the total number of users to over 300 million this year.
Statistics also show that one in six people buying tickets to sporting events in 2023 is from the United States, which has 43.8 million users this year. Although the revenue is much lower than the United States, in 2023 China will record almost 70 million users. They are followed by Japan, UK and Canada with 12.3 million, 8 million and 4.5 million users respectively in the sports events market.
