Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
NAICS 71 Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation: live events, museums, sports, fitness, and gambling across the U.S. leisure economy.
Industry at a Glance
Sector-wide aggregates across all businesses classified under NAICS 71 (2017 classification frame). For specific sub-industries within this sector, see the individual reports below.
Industry Overview
The Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation sector (NAICS 71) spans live performance venues, museums, spectator sports, amusement operations, gambling, and fitness facilities. The sector's economics are driven by discretionary consumer spending and split between a handful of dominant operators and thousands of independent establishments. Walt Disney Company and Comcast (through Universal Parks) control the largest U.S. theme park operations, while Live Nation Entertainment dominates concert promotion and ticketing through its Ticketmaster platform. Professional sports leagues — the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL — anchor the spectator sports subsector, with franchise valuations and media rights deals setting the financial ceiling.
Museums and performing arts organizations operate under a fundamentally different model. Institutions like the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art rely on a mix of admissions, endowments, and public funding, with the National Endowment for the Arts providing federal grants that flow disproportionately to organizations in New York, California, and Illinois. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 altered charitable giving incentives, pressuring donation-dependent nonprofits in this space.
Fitness and recreation — the sector's fastest-growing subsector before the pandemic — is now led by Planet Fitness, Life Time Group, and Equinox in the gym segment, with boutique studios and outdoor recreation operations filling niches. Gambling establishments, concentrated in Nevada and New Jersey, have expanded through state-level sports betting legalization following the Supreme Court's Murphy v. NCAA decision in 2018. Over thirty states now permit some form of legal sports wagering.
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Industry Trends
The DOJ's antitrust case against Live Nation-Ticketmaster, filed in 2024, targets the company's control over venue booking, ticket distribution, and artist management — the outcome could restructure the live events supply chain if divestiture is ordered.
State-level sports betting legalization continues expanding beyond Nevada and New Jersey, with mobile wagering apps from DraftKings and FanDuel generating tax revenue that states are earmarking for education and infrastructure, reshaping the gambling subsector's geographic footprint.
Museum attendance models are shifting from single-ticket visits to membership and dynamic pricing structures, with institutions like the Dallas Museum of Art experimenting with free general admission funded by philanthropic endowments to drive ancillary revenue from retail and events.
Boutique fitness operators — F45 Training, Orangetheory Fitness, Barry's — are gaining franchise market share from traditional big-box gyms by offering class-based formats with higher per-visit revenue and smaller real estate footprints in urban and suburban markets.
Outdoor recreation participation surged during the pandemic and has remained elevated, prompting the Bureau of Economic Analysis to publish its first Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account, which tracks the subsector's contribution to GDP by state — with Colorado, Utah, and Montana showing the highest shares.
Available Reports
5 industry reports available for purchase under Arts, Entertainment & Recreation.
1 report▾
Specialty Reports Available on Request
25 specialty industriesavailable on request▾
Subsectors
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Frequently Asked Questions
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