Busan to conduct first survey of athletes and sports professionals in South Korea

Busan city government will hold a briefing Friday afternoon at the international conference hall of City Hall to present its plan for a comprehensive survey of sports professionals — the first such initiative by any local government in South Korea. The session is designed to inform sports organizations about the survey and share its direction and objectives.

About 110 people are expected to attend, including the head of the city's sports policy division and the secretaries-general of the Busan Sports Council and its 55 member sports associations. The meeting will open with a presentation by Jang Jeong-jae, a senior researcher at the Busan Development Institute (BDI), covering the survey's background and key content, followed by a discussion of activity conditions by sport and a question-and-answer session.

The survey, organized by the Busan Sports Council and conducted by BDI, will target 2,600 active athletes, coaches, referees and other sports professionals residing in Busan, running through Aug. 31. Through questionnaires and interviews, researchers will assess overall working conditions, including employment and labor environments, income and welfare, and primary and secondary occupations. The city and the Busan Sports Council will encourage member sports associations to participate and monitor the survey's progress to boost response rates.

A city official said the survey would serve as "the first step toward evidence-based sports policy" as part of a broader push to reform Busan's sports administration around field-level needs. The city plans to use the findings to build a baseline for improving the treatment of professional athletes and to inform the sports policy vision for the ninth elected-term administration.

Meanwhile, the city is carrying out a comprehensive sports promotion master plan study, due to be completed by October, as part of its vision to develop Busan into a sports-centered city through competitive policy initiatives.

Nam Jeong-eun, director of the city's sports bureau, said the survey "carries great significance as the first official effort to document the working conditions of Busan's sports professionals and establish a foundation for sports policy." She added that the city would "build the policy foundation for a sports-centered city based on voices from the field and objective data."