Online Course Guide of WHU –
Find all modules and courses of our degree programs.
Please use the filters below to select the term (spring or fall) as well as the respective program (BSc, MSc, MBA, Exchange, Doctoral) of your choice for an overview of all modules offered at WHU. The courses are listed under the modules. Please click on a module to see which courses are part of it. If you would like to find out more about a certain course, click on the name of the course to see detail information. The location of the lecture will be revealed after your course registration on myWHUstudies.
Spring term counts from January - August, fall term counts from September - December.
Important for Exchange Students: As the Full-Time and Part-Time MBA Programs utilize a modular course structure, the dates on which students begin and end the exchange are flexible. Please find here a chronological overview of the preliminary course offering for Fall and Spring.
Sustainable mega sport events: Oxymoron or reality?
More recently, public support for hosting the Olympic Games seems to have diminished in Europe and the United States, despite extensive campaigns with their promise of economic benefits. Boston (USA) and Hamburg (Germany), for example, withdrew their plans to host the 2024 Summer Olympics amid a lack of public support. For the same reason, the European cities of Graubünden, Krakow, Munich, Oslo and Stockholm decided not to apply for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Interestingly, an argument frequently raised by opponents is that such a hosting is unlikely to be ecologically sustainable or, even worse, harmful to the environment.
(Please note that exchange students obtain a higher number of credits in the BSc-program at WHU than listed here. For further information please contact directly the International Relations Office.)
Course Content
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.
Class Dates
Date
Time
Learning Outcomes
- 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.
Literature
Learning Methods
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.