Abstract: While the digital economy has profoundly reshaped China’s employment landscape, empirical analyses focusing on the sports sector remain scarce. This study integrates employment quantity, structure, and quality within a unified framework to construct a multidimensional mechanism elucidating the influence of digital economy development on employment in the sports industry. Utilizing data from listed sports companies, we validate the heterogeneous effects of digital economy growth on employment outcomes in this sector. Key findings reveal that digital economy development significantly enhances the employment absorption capacity of the sports industry and optimizes its employment structure. However, its role in improving employment quality remains statistically insignificant. As the digital economy serves as a critical foundation for achieving higher-quality employment, we propose policy recommendations to strengthen digital infrastructure, advance sports-related producer services, cultivate digital sports talent, and fully unleash the latent potential of the digital economy in driving employment in the sports industry.

Key words: digital economy development, employment in the sports industry, employment effects, digitalization of the sports industry, employment quality