The Effect of Giant Sports Events on Local Economy: Evidence from Olympic Games and World Cup

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-992-6_46How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Giant Sports Events; Local Economy; Olympic Games; World Cup

Abstract

Giant sports events have long faced endogeneity challenges, as host cities often pursue infrastructure upgrades and policy reforms independent of the events themselves, making it difficult to isolate their true economic effects. This study presents new evidence of the impact of Giant sports events on regional economic development by conducting comparative case studies and hypothesis testing across multiple host cities. The empirical results show the following: Giant sports events generate highly heterogeneous outcomes, with absorptive capacity, governance quality, and legacy planning significantly shaping post-event trajectories. Positive legacies are most evident in cases with high infrastructure readiness and effective governance, where sustained GDP growth and tourism expansion were reported. Conversely, events with poor governance and weak legacy strategies, suffered from financial burdens, underutilized stadiums, and long-term debt. The mechanism behind these outcomes lies in how Giant sports events influence investment allocation, infrastructure utilization, and institutional capacity. In light of the findings, policymakers should treat Giant sports events as conditional growth opportunities, ensuring event-driven investments align with broader urban strategies, legacy planning, and fiscal discipline to maximize sustainable benefits.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Junzhang Ren
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/20
TI  - The Effect of Giant Sports Events on Local Economy: Evidence from Olympic Games and World Cup
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 4th International Conference on Mathematical Statistics and Economic Analysis (MSEA 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 489
EP  - 505
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-992-6_46
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-992-6_46
ID  - Ren2026
ER  -