The recent announcement of ROSHN Group’s sponsorship of LIV Golf and its investment in a national development programme for Saudi youth, named Rising Stars, is one example of the many initiatives the group has been undertaking over the past couple of years as it invests in the country’s sporting sector.

While ROSHN made headlines with the announcement of two stadiums it is involved in developing – Aramco Stadium in Dammam and ROSHN Stadium in Riyadh – the group has been steadily pushing forward in a number of areas as it looks to leverage sports as a point of differentiation in the kingdom’s development sector.

On a project level, astute watchers of the group’s masterplans will have seen how ROSHN Group has both planned and built facilities within its projects. In SEDRA, ROSHN’s first community in Riyadh, both residents and visitors have access to football and basketball courts. The group is investing in additional sporting facilities, such as padel courts and the larger sports dome with the Sports4All Federation. Add this to the walkways, bicycle paths, and running tracks extending through SEDRA and ROSHN Group’s other communities, and the result is one of the most sports-focused developers in the region.

ROSHN has not stopped there, with investments in grassroots activities, both in its communities where it has spent on community activities for residents, as well as larger sponsorships with the likes of the ROSHN Saudi League, Formula One, and the Riyadh Marathon.

While this approach makes sense in terms of the country’s push to promote sports through Vision 2030 – the aim is to promote healthier lifestyles and reduce lifestyle-related diseases – ROSHN Group is looking to sports as a growth enabler, both for that vertical and for its residential offerings.

The approach, which is unique to the Gulf region, has precedents. Take, for example, the US. The Sports Events and Tourism Association estimated that in 2021 alone, the impact of sports spending was $91.8 billion, with almost half of that spent on hospitality, retail, and F&B. Sports provides hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US, and the industry is growing.

With ambitions to become a global hub, the kingdom is investing heavily in both sporting infrastructure and events. Research consultancy PwC has estimated that sports events will contribute up to $5.9 billion by 2030. Bain & Co. estimates that sports will generate 1.5 per cent of the country’s non-oil gross domestic product by 2030, creating over 140,000 jobs for events such as the ROSHN Saudi League and for sports such as racing and golf. Global tournaments such as the FIFA 2034 World Cup, which will take place across the country, will add to the sporting bonanza, which ROSHN is set to benefit from.

But there are other, more intangible benefits for developers. It promotes a sense of well-being and community, giving residents and visitors an opportunity to come together through activities in which everyone can take part. An example of this is ROSHN Group’s fan zones in its retail areas, most notably ROSHN Front. These spaces become areas where people of all ages and types mix and develop a sense of togetherness which is otherwise hard to replicate. Such developments are a draw, both for people looking for a home and for retailers and brands who benefit from the mass of people gathered together for events and activities.

And this is what it comes down to for ROSHN Group. The company is building the brand as a multi-asset developer, as a company that contributes across all of its verticals. Sports is a unique value add for what the company wants to do, which is to create a different lifestyle, and it is also an amplifier for its quality of life aspirations. In sum, ROSHN Group wants to be associated with sports and building the sporting scene in the kingdom. That is an edge which other developers cannot contend with. Time will tell how these investments work for the group, but creating a sporting legacy is an outlay that the group believes is worth doing, not just for its shareholders but for the country as a whole.