Perceptions of the Impacts of Major Commercial Sport Events

Governments worldwide have been encouraged to subsidize events, build stadia and arenas and engage in highly competitive and costly bidding processes by the expectation that benefits will accrue from major events (Bennett, 2006; Bull and Lovell, 2007; Crompton, 1995; Dolles and Söderman, 2008). There is a general belief amongst policy makers that hosting large-scale sporting events can realize substantial positive externalities (Bull and Lovell, 2007), and that the associated recognition effects are ‘a major rationale for hosting such events’ (Bob and Swart, 2009; Jones, 2001). Baade (2000: 24) argued that cities have used the “promise of increased economic activity to persuade citizens to lend financial support to an aggressive city strategy to remake their centres into cultural destinations”. Such strategies are often manifested through the hosting of major sport events.