Athletics is in fashion. It is a global phenomenon. The best marathons in the world (“majors”) sell out thousands of race numbers, popular races fill up, television audiences do not stop growing and, on a professional level, the economic impact of 2025 is 586 million dollars with its three major world events.
The year 2025 was the year of records. The economic impact estimated by World Athletics of the Nanjing Indoor World Championships and the Guanzhou World Relay Championships (China) and the Outdoor World Championships in Tokyo (Japan) exceeds $586 million, with 1.4 billion hours of television viewing in 234 territories for the three events.
“On average, our return is four times greater than our investment, although in some cases, such as the Outdoor World Championships in Tokyo, there were five,” reveals the president of World Athletics, the British Sebastian Coe, in a virtual talk with three international media outlets.
“This represents a notable increase in impact compared to previous events. These figures tell us that we are on the right path and that our sport is of great interest,” declares Coe, who assures that this investment and economic performance also comes accompanied by sporting performance.
Eighty-four countries reached the final of the Tokyo World Cup, compared to 47 at the same World Cup in the Japanese city in 1991, and the expectation in the stands was enormous. More than 600,000 tickets were sold to watch the competition live with sessions sold out on seven of the nine nights.
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Virtual athletics community
World Athletics followers on social media increased by three million, from fourteen million to seventeen million, and more than one million new followers were gained, reaching a total of 2.15 potential followers.
Traditional media coverage of World Athletics was just under 400,000 articles with a reach of 38 billion, a potential reach of 198 billion.
Sports growth was also exponential with more than 21,000 athletes competing in Diamond League and Continental Tour events. Of all of them, 10,184 registered personal bests and 222 national records were established in the competitions.
This sporting growth also brings with it an increase in the technical part. According to World Athletics, 1,200 new level 1 and 2 coaches were registered, more than a quarter of them women, and there are 727 new referees in international competitions, of which more than a third are women.
The race for a number
The fever for running and the interest in athletics is not limited to the professional field. An example is popular races, which turned the hobby of running into a sports industry that generates a lot of money in bibs, trips, technical equipment, training groups or nutrition plans.
The San Silvestre Vallecana, which takes place on December 31, sold out the 42,000 bibs available with several weeks left before its celebration, just as happened this year with the Barcelona marathon (25,000), the Seville half marathon (17,000), the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series in Madrid (45,000), the Berlin marathon (55,000) or the recent Valencia marathon (35,000), which for the next edition opened, like New York or London, a raffle system to get the desired number due to high demand.
With information from EFE
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