Assessment of selected areas of sport in EU countries

Sport is an important sector of economic activity and is closely linked to other areas of the service sector (culture, education, tourism, recreation and leisure time). The aim of the study is evaluation of selected areas of sport in the EU countries with focus on economic matters of sport and areas associated with the development of sports services. This study makes use of multivariate methods (factor analysis and cluster analysis). The results of the factor analysis, based on the assessed factors in sports focused on economic matters in sport and development of sports services have shown that, with exceptions, the EU countries vary in their sport policies. The most notable differences in terms of the evaluated areas of sport have been found in Performing Physical Activities and Employment in Sport. The findings on the evaluated areas of sports, received by use of cluster analysis, the K-means method, show that despite marked differences in sport policies, partial similarities can be found between certain groups of countries and mutual ties to identical sport policy systems. The findings may be beneficial not only to creators of sport policies in the individual EU countries but also to other actors in the sport industry and services in both the public and the private sectors.