MultiSport CEO Miroslav Rech: why employee sport pays off

Miroslav Rech, CEO of MultiSport Benefit, told the Forbes Lepší Česko conference how, over ten years, sport as an employee benefit has gone from a pleasant extra to a tool that directly affects company profit. When he joined the company in 2015, he predicted that the number of users would grow from 25,000 to a quarter of a million. Colleagues thought it was utopian. Today MultiSport has around 365,000 participants.

According to Rech, as recently as around 2010 the concepts of well-being and work-life balance were barely heard in companies. First a network of sports venues had to be built so that cardholders had somewhere to go, and only then could the company start promoting a healthy lifestyle. At the same time, the team convinced employers that investing in employee health is a strategic investment, not a bonus for a narrow group of sports fans.

How employers' logic has changed. Companies used to hand out the same perks to everyone just to tick a box in a report. Then they calculated what sick leave and absenteeism cost them. Once it became clear that supporting exercise and health can reduce illness by up to 10%, the sports benefit became a business tool. The turning point came shortly before the pandemic, and lockdown accelerated the process: people began to take better care of themselves.

MultiSport in numbers today:

• contracts with more than 13,000 employers, which together employ about 1.5 million people;
• company turnover of about 4 billion crowns;
• with full coverage of the segment, turnover could reach 8–10 billion crowns;
• in 2024 the headcount grew from 80 to 160 employees, and the company is also growing in the regions.

The market potential is huge. According to the MultiSport Index, 53% of Czechs exercise regularly, while the other 47% are indifferent to exercise. Only slightly under 40% of employers offer MultiSport cards as a benefit. Meanwhile, young professionals under 35 in big cities increasingly check whether a prospective employer offers such a benefit.

The tax question. The number of clients is growing even though the state, as part of its budget consolidation, has cut tax support for such benefits. Rech discussed the issue directly with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and, by phone, with Finance Minister Alena Schillerová. According to him, the minister looks at the problem from a somewhat different angle: the current limit concerns the exemption of the benefit from income tax but does not affect employers themselves. The goal, Rech stresses, is for firms to be motivated to invest in their employees' health.

The population is aging, and that will last, the MultiSport chief reminds us. So both employers and the state have an interest in people staying healthy and able to work for as long as possible.

By the Around Prague newsroom