National Pride, Sporting Success and Event Hosting: An Analysis of Intangible Effects Related to Major Athletic Tournaments

Abstract

Contemporary research into the impact of major sports events shows that the widely used (and popular) claim of economic benefits associated with hosting them is misleading or – at best – overrated. In this paper, we aim to measure whether other potential intangible effects can be found, specifically that of national pride. We expand on existing research by including more international sports events and nations while also including a medal index into our regression models to test the effect of athletic achievement. Our results suggest that international sporting success is not a significant driver of national pride. Hosting mega sports events is positively correlated with pride, although this is not significant in our estimations. Implications for nations are that they should become much more strategic in order to harvest potential intangible effects.