Sport is an institution interesting to study, being similar, but also different from traditional business organizations. Significant segments of sport have copied practices and the values of the business world, and as a result have been designed strategic plans, and players and administrators have become paid employees. The purposes of this paper are to highlight main models used in sports performance management as well as to test the relation between football organizations and economic growth for Romania for period 1992-2011. The results from the study performed suggest there is a non-linear relation between football organizations and economic growth that record a quadratic U-shape and a minimum level of GDPPC around 2457.5 RON.