Meeting Expectations at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games: Country Potential and Competitiveness

Abstract

ObjectiveDevelop a framework to measure the extent to which countries meet their performance expectations at major sporting events using economists, experts, and fan knowledge.MethodLong‐term expectations based on socioeconomic potential are calculated using sport‐agnostic econometric modeling. Short‐term expectations based on performance and competitiveness are calculated using betting odds, which incorporate both expert knowledge and “wisdom of the crowd.” Robust statistics based on the chi‐squared distribution are used to measure the extent to which countries’ expectations are met. Our method is tested using real data from the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games.ResultsTwelve countries over‐ or underperformed in terms of meeting either long‐ or short‐term expectations.ConclusionsUzbekistan was the only country that exceeded both long‐ and short‐term expectations.