Sustainable mega sport events: Oxymoron or reality?

Public referenda have become a frequent tool of popular sovereignty across Western democracies (Casella & Gelman, 2008). Unsurprisingly, this general trend also affects applicant cities willing to host mega sport events such as the Olympic Games. For example, referenda have recently put an end to seven Olympic candidatures (Graubünden, Munich, and Krakow for the 2022 Olympics, Hamburg for the 2024 Olympics, Innsbruck and Graubünden again for the 2026 Olympics, and Vienna for 2028 Olympics). Additionally, Boston and Budapest canceled their candidatures for the 2024 Olympics facing both an apparent lack of public support and demands for referenda.

Potentially triggered by the recent rejections of Olympic host ambitions, researchers, primarily those operating in the field of sports economics, have begun to explore the determinants of individual citizen support for Olympic bids (e.g., Atkinson, Mourato, Szymanski, & Ozdemiroglu, 2008; Coates & Wicker, 2015; Preuss & Werkmann, 2011; Walton, Longo, & Dawson, 2008; Wicker & Coates, 2018; Wicker, Whitehead, Mason, & Johnson, 2016). Interestingly, an argument frequently raised by opponents is that such a hosting is unlikely to be sustainable or, even worse, harmful, primarily to the environment.

Therefore, in this course, we will assess the economic, environmental, and social footprint of mega sports events such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. Based on this initial assessment, students will work in teams to develop a first concept for sustainable mega sports events.

• Students will learn how to effectively define and measure/assess sustainability.

Learn about the economics of mega sport events:

• Students will gain a first understanding of key issues in the economics of mega sport events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games.

To ensure progress, there are, among other things, mandatory feedback sessions. Students then present their results to their classmates in class.

To allow for questions from both the instructor and the classmates, the presentation is followed by a short Q&A session.

Having listened to multiple student presentations on a range of different mega sport events in-class during the last session, students, then, reflect on both emerging/repeating patterns in the sustainability of previous mega sport event and their learning experience in form of a short reflection paper answering the question of whether sustainable mega sport events are either an oxymoron or (already) reality.