The sports sector has lots of business opportunities and you can start a business in the sports industry and take your share of the pie.
There are different aspects you can consider since the industry is huge. Let’s explore profitable business opportunities that abound in the sports industry.
Table of Contents
Sports Blogging
Sports lovers usually follow the latest trends online – whether it’s football, basketball, volleyball, and so on, for instance, the ongoing AFCON 2022 in Cameroon.
You can start blogging on sports or simply pick a niche in sports that you’re good at, you’re might want to blog about popular sports that have a huge following.
Let’s say you want to blog about football, you can decide to blog about everything related to football or simply decide to focus on table tennis.
How to make money from a sports blog:
Following on your sports blogs means can be monetized for Google Adsense or use affiliates and begin to advertise for entities who are ready to pay for advert space on your blog.
Remember, you don’t need 1,000,000 page views per day or followers to monetize your sports blog
Sports Photography
If you have photography skills, you can start a business that is focused on covering just sports events. This can be your area of speciality and you won’t have to compete with the plethora of photographers we already have around.
Get good cameras, register your business, and obtain necessary licenses – and you can be paid to even cover major sports events. Some media organisations are ready to pay sports photographers to get exclusive shots
Sports Shop
This is capital intensive no doubt, but it can be rewarding if you are if you have the capital to pump into this investment. You can decide to open a general sports store or simply focus on selling products related to a particular sport.
If you want to settle for the latter, ensure the sport is located in a town or city where sporting activities take place. You don’t want to locate a sports store in a village where their major activity is farming.
To make more money from this, sell customised t-shirts of popular players that you know have huge followers.
Sports Magazine or Newspaper
Here is another capital intensive business idea in the sports industry. If you want to start small, then it will be easier if you are a trained journalist, as you will be able to do a lot of running around yourself and cut costs.
But if you have big money as an entrepreneur, you can bring a team together and get started e.g Complete sports.
Sports Radio Station
If you are not interested in starting a sports magazine or newspaper (perhaps because those things are no longer popular where you are), then you should consider a sports radio station e.g Brila FM
You can decide to even narrow it down to a particular sport to stand out easily from the crowd.
Sports Promotions Business
This business entails offering the service of promoting sports events. If you have huge money, you can start on a high level by competing with the big guys already on the scene. If not, simply start from scratch, from your local community.
Become a Football Scout
One of the most popular and widely embraced sports in the world is football. Football presents huge opportunities that are very vast, as it is followed by millions of people.
One of the businesses in football that is lucrative is becoming a football scout. The job of scouts is always essential in football as they help clubs get raw talents.
As a football scout, just a single successful deal with a top European or American club can fetch you big money instantly.
Sports Television Station
It takes a lot of money to start and run a television station. You will have to spend more on such a venture even than what you would have spent if you want to run a sports magazine or radio station.
However, sports is beautiful with television, as it enables viewers to follow as if they were at the scene. Your television station will earn money via advertisements, and the more popular it is, the more advertisers you will get.
Football Jersey Customizing Business
If you are reading this right now, you are likely living in a place where football is popular. Football lovers usually follow top European clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid FC, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, and so on.
These fans love associating with these clubs in their own space, and a popular means of identification is a jersey.
Hence, you can start a business that is about making customized football jerseys, and you don’t even really need to spend too much money to get started. Just ensure you are getting quality jerseys.
Basketball Academy
Basketball is another popular sport all over the world, and you can focus on the game in your attempt to start a business in the world of sports. Sure, you will need good money to start and run a good basketball academy.
However, it can be pretty rewarding if you know what to do, which is possible when you learn the ropes first.
Swimming School
In many places and for many people, swimming is more than a sport, but a necessity. You can start a swimming school and adequately advertise your business. You will be amazed at the number of people interested in learning how to swim.
Siting swimming schools in cities like Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, Abeokuta will be amazing for the owner as hundreds of people are ready to pay on how to swim.
A Gym Center
Establishing a gym centre is capital intensive, but it’s rewarding in state capitals and major cities. Many people place great priority on keeping fit and won’t hesitate to sign up at a gym centre where they can keep fit.
Football Pitch Construction and Maintenance Firm
This is more tilted towards folks in the engineering sector. It’s amazing how different occupations and professionals can find expression to their skills and expertise in the sports industry.
You will have to operate an established firm that is duly registered and licensed if you want to get contracts for such operations.
Making Sports Cartoons
If you are skilled with graphics and animation, here is a business idea for you in the world of sports. You can produce cartoon movies about popular sports.
Community Football Academy
If you want to operate this legally, you are expected to be appropriately registered and licensed by relevant authorities. However, you will need good money to put many things in their proper places.
Making of Sports Toys
While this one is also capital intensive, it is very profitable if you know how to find your way into the market. Children love toys, and they have top sports they admire so much.
Football Youtuber
You can start a business that revolves around making commentaries on football on YouTube. If you are familiar with YouTube, you should have noticed that some of the most popular channels are football ones. Observe what they are doing and be innovative with yours.
Sports Clothes Production Company
To successfully start and flourish in this business, you need capital. This will enable you to kickstart appropriately and also have adequate resources to advertise.
Production of Sports Computer Games
Many people all over the world enjoy playing computer games, particularly for relaxation purposes. Games related to sports are prominent out there since people usually enjoy experiences that make them partakers of the sports they love.
You can start a business that is into building sports computer games. Just a successful one could keep fetching you good money each month.
Balls Manufacturing
You can start a business manufacturing footballs, basketballs, tennis balls, and so on. Many sports lovers, particularly the likes of football, tennis and basketball, are usually eager to play at their own level.
Football Viewing Center
You can start a football viewing center where people come together to watch their favourite football teams. The more customers you can attract, the more money you will make. You can also add sports betting business to the viewing centre business.
Sports Research, and Biography Writing Firm
This is easier for people who loves researching and can bring up nice long educative write-ups. As stated before, different people can always get their place in the sports industry. You can make money researching and writing biographies (or other nice write-ups) of prominent sports personalities, and you can always sell them taking advantage of the internet.
Organize Amateur Football League in Your Community
You can start organizing Amateur football events in your community. Participants can pay a fee to partake, or you get sponsors.
Football-Talk Show on Radio and TV
If you are a media person looking for ways to earn money from the football industry in line with your profession, you don’t have to wait till you have huge money to start a football magazine or television before you can kickstart something.
Rather, you can start your football talk show on radio and TV. If you are good with what you do, you will easily attract corporate sponsorships, and it becomes profitable.
Sports Apps Building Firm
If you are a tech person (particularly a programmer), you can start a business that revolves around building sports applications for smartphones.
One interesting thing about this is that you don’t even have to wait till people patronize your business to build apps for them. You can focus on building your apps and making good money from them.
Sale of Tickets for Sports Events
Tickets are usually sold for people to watch live sports events, and one can run a business that revolves around selling tickets to sports lovers to enable them to gain entry into these sports events.
You can focus on popular sports like football, basketball, and boxing. Usually, you don’t need to have a lot of money before you can start this, since it is usually a commission-based thing. The more tickets you can sell, the more you make.
Catering Services of Sport Teams
Even at a general level, this business is pretty lucrative. You can however easily focus on sports teams to stand out easily. It entails going with the teams to their camping venues and handling their catering needs. If you are good, with referrals, you get more clients.
Sport Souvenir Business
Look around, and you will see a lot of smart people already earning a lot of money doing this. It could be pens, jerseys, bags, mugs, etc. Just ensure it’s a popular product that can carry the name and logo of those popular sports teams.
Sports Consulting Business
This is a lucrative one, but not everyone can operate it. It entails providing consulting services for sports clubs, sportsmen and women, as well as relevant stakeholders (including governments). If you are pushing for this, you must have a reputation first before you can be trusted and deemed reliable.
Start an Online Sport Shop
Unlike a brick and mortar store where you need to have a place that is either rented or owned (which requires more capital), here, you don’t have to bother about that, and you can kick off with what you have.
You don’t even need to wait till you build a functional website, as you can take advantage of social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to advertise your sports products.