Explore the vast range of titles available.

The numbers are staggering: China spent $40 billion to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing and Russia spent $50 billion for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. Brazil's total expenditures are thought to have been as much as $20 billion for the World Cup this summer and Qatar, which will be the site of the 2022 World Cup, is estimating that it will spend $200 billion. How did we get here? And is it worth it? Those are among the questions noted sports economist Andrew Zimbalist answers inCircus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup. Both the Olympics and the World Cup are touted as major economic boons for the countries that host them, and the competition is fierce to win hosting rights. Developing countries especially see the events as a chance to stand in the world's spotlight. Circus Maximustraces the path of the Olympic Games and the World Cup from noble sporting events to exhibits of excess. It exposes the hollowness of the claims made by their private industry boosters and government supporters, all illustrated through a series of case studies ripping open the experiences of Barcelona, Sochi, Rio, and London. Zimbalist finds no net economic gains for the countries that have played host to the Olympics or the World Cup. While the wealthy may profit, those in the middle and lower income brackets do not, and Zimbalist predicts more outbursts of political anger like that seen in Brazil surrounding the 2014 World Cup.

Large-Scale Sport Events (LSSE) are increasingly contested as host cities balance the benefits and costs of these events. Residents are a stakeholder group heavily impacted by LSSE given their rootedness in the host city over the event lifecycle spanning: bid submission, awarding of host rights, pre-event planning, event delivery, post-event shutdown and beyond. Yet, limited focus has been placed on understanding residents' perceptions of LSSE impacts in the pre-event period. Twenty-seven semi-structured interviews, guided by Seligman’s (2011) PERMA framework, were conducted with Australian residents in 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup host cities. Findings demonstrated how four PERMA domains (positive emotions, relationships, meaning and accomplishment) were activated. Findings advance understanding of how LSSE can positively impact residents in a phase of the event lifecycle when event organisers and host governments are often not yet actively engaging with this key stakeholder group. Key theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Event hosting legacies, the ability of host cities to capitalise upon mega-event hosting and utilise the acquired skills, knowledge and networks to secure an ongoing track record of event hosting, is a form of social legacy that has received limited dedicated study to date. The literature hints at the realisation of such legacies but this evidence base is patchy and the factors influencing legacy generation are largely unknown. This study seeks to address this gap by retrospectively applying a set of event hosting legacy indicators recently developed by Lockstone-Binney et al. (2023) to investigate the event hosting legacies of Olympic Summer Games and Olympic Winter Games Host Cities over the period 1988-2000. The cross-case analysis revealed that event hosting legacies were not homogenous across host cities with some having strong (Calgary, Seoul, Barcelona, Sydney), moderate (Albertville, Lillehammer, Atlanta) and limited (Nagano) evidence to support an event hosting legacy. The cross-case analysis revealed that a hosting legacy was influenced by structural and enabling contextual factors, which determine the extent to which legacy can be realised relative to opportunity.

The cost of the Winter Olympics in Russia quadrupled to a record-breaking £30 billion following allegations of massive corruption. Panorama investigates claims that lucrative contracts were handed to President Putin's friends, and that billions had been embezzled by fraudsters and corrupt officials. Despite the huge cost of the games, thousands of Olympic workers say they have not been paid, and some claim they were tortured by the police when they tried to protest. The games in Sochi were supposed to be a showcase for modern Russia, but what did they really reveal about President Putin's state?

Bids for large-scale sporting events and the accompanying political rhetoric typically include promises of economic development and gains for host business communities over the short and long term. Although conceptual models for economic leverage of large-scale sport events have been developed, our knowledge of the practical experiences of private enterprise converting opportunities presented by large-scale sport events is limited. In this article, the authors address this gap through a case study of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. The article investigates the opportunities and challenges perceived by private enterprises across the host city and explores the implementation of existing strategies to leverage benefits for business. Although participants identify the general benefits of hosting the event, they struggle to conceptualize benefits in relation to their own business settings. This suggests a disconnect between the legacy rhetoric of large-scale sporting events and the conversion of these opportunities into outcomes by private enterprises in the host city. Against this background, the article outlines a range of practical implications for private enterprise and key areas for future research.

For a variety of political, climatic, ecological, security-related and other reasons, the Russian summer resort of Sochi by the Black Sea would seem a most unlikely candidate for the Olympic Winter Games. Despite this, the Games will be held there in February 2014, and the Russian leaders regard the Games as a highly prestigious project underlining Russia’s return to a status of great power in the contemporary world. This book conducts a thorough inventory of the contexts, characteristics and.

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate the FIFA requirement that World Cup host nations make alcohol available at World Cup stadia because of its sponsorship agreement with Anheuser-Busch. This paper suggests a framework that FIFA should use in evaluating potential host nations to address the ethical implications of alcohol at the World Cup, especially considering the recent Qatar 2022 World Cup, the first to be held in an Islamic Country. Design/methodology/approach Using historical analysis of recent World Cups and guided by the Culture-Centered Approach (Dutta, 2008) and stakeholder analysis literature, this paper examines the ethical dilemmas host nations have faced because of FIFA’s insistence on alcohol sales at World Cup stadia. Findings The analysis suggests that a three-step process of host country assessment, stakeholder mapping and negotiation would enable the discovery of potential ethical conflicts and thus their negotiation to mitigate the ethical conflicts FIFA’s preexisting sponsorship agreements create for some World Cup host nations, especially Islamic countries. Research limitations/implications While the framework is conceptual and has not been tested, the components from which the authors draw are well established. The application to mega events sports hosting negotiations is an original contribution. The interdisciplinary nature of the framework also provides a contribution to the research field. Practical implications Application of the framework would enable FIFA and host countries to negotiate mutually agreeable conditions and avoid placing host nations in ethically compromising situations, which is especially timely as FIFA expands into Islamic countries. Its utilization would provide a Halal environment for World Cups hosted in Islamic and perhaps other, countries. Social implications FIFA’s commitment to alcohol at World Cups should be questioned. FIFA should not expand this dangerous practice of associating sports with alcohol. Female fans may feel safer, as occurred in Qatar 2022. Originality/value This paper's framework uniquely combines communication and strategic management literature and applies it to mega sports events in an original way that would lead to more ethical and culturally contextualized World Cups rather than reifying the alcohol–sport nexus.

PurposeThis study investigated the influence of residents' perceived benefits and costs of hosting an international sporting event (i.e. 2019 Military World Games) on their attitudes and support toward the event.Design/methodology/approachUsing social exchange theory, this study developed a model taking into consideration both benefits and costs in respondents' evaluations of hosting an event, which further influenced their attitude and support. A structural equation model was used to test the developed model with 461 responses from the 2019 Military World Games.FindingsThe results showed that the model has an acceptable fit to the data and supported all three hypotheses: Hypothesis 1 (Individuals' perceived benefits of hosting an event will positively influence their attitude toward the event), Hypothesis 2 (Individuals' perceived costs of hosting an event will negatively influence their attitude toward the event) and Hypothesis 3 (Individuals' attitude toward an event will influence their support for the event).Originality/valueThe developed model intended to provide a more comprehensive picture of individuals' evaluation of hosting an international sporting event by including both benefits and costs of hosting the event. As the support of residents becomes more important in successfully hosting an event, this model helps to understand what factors influence residents' support.

From a renowned group of international scholars, this new work examines how leading economic countries use sport business to drive and further economic development by raising brand awareness (country as a brand), transforming lagging communities, and enhancing travel and tourism in the country.

Mega sporting event hosting and sponsorship garner billions of dollars in investments from countries and companies, but their effectiveness has yet to be definitively determined. If the announcement of a host country serves as a signal to the investors who comprise a market, then there should be an increased return in response to the announcement. Similarly, if companies are activating their sponsorships during a sporting event there may be a higher return than what would be expected otherwise. The evaluation of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games held in Rio de Janeiro demonstrates that the announcement did not impact the market of Brazil, or of the other countries who were under consideration using rate of return, log returns and seemingly unrelated regression models. There were abnormal cumulative abnormal returns that may indicate that it takes time for mega-events to exert an economic benefit. Further evaluation using similar techniques for the sponsoring companies of different levels did not demonstrate a difference in returns based on sponsorship, but did indicate that brand affiliation has a negative effect and being a sport company has a positive effect. These results further the academic literature regarding market perspectives and sport mega-events.