According to a variety of consultants, PhD theses and expertly-compiled reports published at various points over the past few years, the global sports industry is enjoying a prolonged period of rude health.

While Western nations have suffered from unprecedented economic upheaval and considerably deeper recessions than anyone imagined possible half-a-dozen years ago, well-organised professional sporting activities, which used to be little more than pastimes played with varying degrees of skill and enthusiasm, have grown, commercially-speaking, at a remarkable rate.

Top-flight sport’s increasingly international nature partly explains why the sector has largely avoided economic implosion. The decision to take the World Cup to Qatar, the Olympic Games to Sochi and Rio de Janeiro, the introduction of sparkling new venues in Formula One and the stunning success of the IPL have each been driven by money and, in several cases, political expediency.

Yes, human rights have been compromised and construction workers abused, while corruption comes as an integral part of today’s international sporting landscape. Regrettably, these unedifying side-effects (and more) are the consequence of sport’s emergence as a serious business sector.

Today’s sports industry comprises an enormous breadth of commercial disciplines and expertise, spanning everything from themed food joints to the sporting memorabilia sub-sector. Mix in the colossal value of live broadcast media rights, infrastructure construction, licensed products, naming rights and sponsorship and it’s easy to see how experts arrive at a figure, pitched somewhere between $620 billion to $1 trillion, as a rather broad estimate of the value of the global sports sector.

A few years ago, analysis commissioned by Lagardère Unlimited found that the global sports industry was growing much faster than national gross domestic product (GDP) rates around the world.

Since then, forecast growth in the worldwide sports events market in particular has lived up to, and in many cases exceeded, expectations.

The sports event market, taken to include revenues from ticketing, media and marketing, was worth around $64 billion in 2009. By mid-2013, this figure had grown to $87 billion.

Not surprisingly, football rules the commercial roost. Five years ago, the game’s annual global revenues totalled $28 billion, a figure which had grown to $34 billion according to the most recent analysis completed last year. Incredibly, football revenues now equate to almost as much as the $38 billion generated by all US sports, Formula One racing, tennis and golf combined.

In Europe alone, football is a $25 billion business, with the five biggest leagues accounting for half of the market, and the top 20 teams comprising roughly one-quarter of the market.

Yet this heady clutch of mind-frazzling numbers and statistics amount to nothing unless the oceans of cash in which the good ship global sport merrily sails is managed and put to effective use.

Granted, for football, this usually means European clubs acting as increasingly wide conduits for player salaries. And while athletes in other sports are wise to the financial rewards enjoyed by those capable of kicking a ball properly and their salary demands are growing as a consequence, the sports industry remains capable of attracting more and more money, certainly for the foreseeable future.

Little more than a generation ago, sport operated on a much smaller scale, which meant that sporting entities were often administered by amateur officials and unpaid volunteers, the admirable mainstay of most sports for best part of a century or more. However, the internationalisation of sport, coupled with the sector’s phenomenal commercial growth, look likely to marginalise the enthusiastic, well-meaning volunteer.

As the sector becomes more sophisticated, technical and competitive, demand for people with skills to develop and grow sports-based businesses has grown exponentially.

For immediate proof, conduct a Google search on the words ‘sports sector jobs’ and within the space of 0.35 seconds, more than 90 million links to agencies and sporting authorities appear. Fitness coaches, physiotherapists and development officers are required just as urgently as a CEO for the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association or broadcast executives adept at establishing the value of sports rights.

Incessant demand from a growing number of prospective clients has resulted in an equally impressive growth in the number of employment agencies focused solely on the sports business. Simon Davidson, head of sector recruitment at Apex Sport, acknowledges that, while competitive, the sports recruitment business, like sport itself, is enjoying a particularly buoyant period.

“Irrespective of the role a client is seeking to fill,” he says, “matching the right people to the job is absolutely crucial to our success.” Since establishing the division within a much larger business five years ago – “to coincide with the surge in Olympic-related enquiries” – Apex’s recruitment team has grown from one to seventeen.

“It seems clear that sport’s upward trajectory is likely to be maintained over the next decade at least,” observes Davidson, “which suggests that demand from organisations, be they in the UK or abroad, for good, talented people will be equally strong.”

Davidson has recently returned from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, “a sports-mad capital city to compare with any in Europe,” but has already also visited Brazil and the UAE this year.

“People are absolutely key to a successful sports recruitment operation,” he says. “We’re constantly on the lookout for people who can organise, or design facilities, manage stadium construction projects, run sporting federations, or succeed in one of the many roles which underpin what is a burgeoning international sector.”

Of course, there will always be a place for the volunteer, though perhaps the deepening chasm which exists between professional sport and its amateur cousin on the pitch or court is also mirrored away from the action too.

Though the noticeable surge in the number of people prepared to give of their time for free can rightly be deemed a worthy, and perhaps the only, tangible legacy of London’s Olympic Games, it would be a sad day were the enthusiastic amateur ousted from sports administration altogether.

Yet if global sport’s aggregate value is even approaching $1 trillion, the demand for competent professionals capable of managing federations and clubs within the sector appears unlikely to slow down.

Davidson confirms his company is about to open an office in Singapore “to deal with client demand in Asia for sports professionals.” Apex’s medium-term plan is to replicate their business model in north America and possibly the Middle East. “If we stand still in this market,” adds Davidson, “there’s no way back.” It’s a comment echoed across the sports recruitment sector.