This paper constructs a model of coupled coordination level of sports industry and economic development, and proposes to combine spatial measurement model and regression analysis model to explore the spatio-temporal characteristics of coupled coordination level. Combined with the panel data of nine cities in Province A from 2019- 2024, the dynamic impact of the sports industry on economic development and its spatial heterogeneity are systematically analyzed. It is found that, firstly, the sports industry and economic development present highly coupled characteristics, and the coupling coordination level is raised from on the verge of dysfunction (0.455) in 2019 to barely coordinated (0.517) in 2024, indicating that the level of synergistic development of the two is significantly enhanced. Second, there is a significant spatial positive correlation between the coupling coordination degree of sports industry and economic development (Moran’s I value of 0.3208~0.4297), and the spatial agglomeration characteristics gradually evolve from mono-core driving to multi-center networking. Third, the regression analysis shows that the coefficient of the total scale variable of the sports industry is 0.6186, the elasticity coefficient of the government input variable is 0.2854, the coefficient of the demand-side variable is 0.4175, and the elasticity coefficient of the human resource variable is 0.1575, i.e., the expansion of the scale of the sports industry, the improvement of human resource reserve, the enhancement of governmental financial support and the optimization of the structure of the market demand have a significantly positive promotion effect.
