Sports Theory?

Question

what is this thoery that the having sports teams play attracts people which promotes revenue because they will goto other attractions as well?

Answer 1

This is to some extent the experience of Barbados, which attracts a lot of English visitors both to watch cricket when England are playing there and to play cricket themselves during the English winter.

Sports playing facilities that are good in someone else's off season can be an effective tourism investment. Think for example of the golf courses on the Algarve. (Portuguese themselves do not play golf.)

Big sporting events in major spectator sports certainly attract lots of tourists, such as the cricket world cup in March in the Caribbean and the football world cup last June in Germany. Becasue sport spectating is a predominantly male pastime, the host cities/countries can create attractions to keep the wives and girlfriends busy, and spending their $, while the men are at the game.

If a country is already attractive to tourism the theory is very plausible. I imagine for example that quite a number of people who come to S Africa for the football world cup in 2010 will visit the Kruger Park, and some will visit the Sun City casinos too. Whether Germany got many such benefits in 06 I don't know, but I'd expect there were some.

I suggest there are four requirements for the theory to be true in reality. One is that the sports event attracts at least tens of thousands of spectators. The World Darts Championship, for example, just doesn't cut it. The second is that it takes place over at least a couple of weeks. The European Champions League Final in football attracts a huge audience, but only for a day or two. If it's held in, say, Barcelona, the bars and hotels of Barca will do good business for a day or two, but that's all. Thirdly, there need to be other attractions within reach of the sports venue(s). Sydney and Melbourne, sure, as the other answerer said, but an event in Kuybyshev would not have much spillover becasue Kuybyshev is a dull place in a dull region of Russia. And fourthly, the events need to be reasonably concentrated. A sportsfest the size of the football world cup can afford to spread over a country the size of Germany, but the rugby world cup when it was scattered across England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France didn't do much for wider tourism in any of those countries because of the scattering of the impact.

Answer 2

Well the number of english tourists has increased for December 06 when compared to December 05 because of the Ashes (Cricket game between england and Australia). It also increased their expenditure and the left more money in Australia. Busiest time ever for Sydney Airport was during the Olympic Games