Major Sporting Events Research Articles

Design and Application of Major Sports Events Management Information System Based on Integration Algorithm.

With the rapid development of social economy and the change of ideology, people are increasingly enthusiastic about participating in sports events. How to make better use of the existing massive network data of sports events to solve the overload of information circulation of sports events has become a potential application problem to promote the development of sports information digitalization. Based on this problem orientation, this paper chooses to study the common characteristics of the current Internet data of sports events and the corresponding and applicable event recommendation technology and constructs feasible event recommendation model as the main direction of solution. The competition information system is the core technology system of the games and the central nervous system of the games. By summing up the previous high-level comprehensive games, the competition information system should serve the competition, command, media, and the public. The smooth construction and stable operation of the perfect design of the competition information system will reflect the organization level of the games and guarantee the success of the games. At the same time, it has certain guiding significance for the design of the competition information system of the large-scale comprehensive games in China in the future.

Respiratory Viral Infections in Athletes: Many Unanswered Questions

Upper respiratory tract infections (“common cold”) are the most common acute illnesses in elite athletes. Numerous studies on exercise immunology have proposed that intense exercise may increase susceptibility to respiratory infections. Virological data to support that view are sparse, and several fundamental questions remain. Immunity to respiratory viral infections is highly complex, and there is a lack of evidence that minor short- or long-term alterations in immunity in elite athletes have clinical implications. The degree to which athletes are infected by respiratory viruses is unclear. During major sport events, athletes are at an increased risk of symptomatic infections caused by the same viruses as those in the general population. The symptoms are usually mild and self-limiting. It is anecdotally known that athletes commonly exercise and compete while having a respiratory viral infection; there are no virological studies to suggest that such activity would affect either the illness or the performance. The risk of myocarditis exists. Which simple mitigation procedures are crucial for effective control of seasonal respiratory viral infections is not known.

Examining Monetary Valuation Methods to Analyze Residents' Social Value From Hosting a Publicly-Funded Major Sport Event

Measuring residents' social value from hosting major sport events has become a popular practitioner and researcher focus. However, researchers have used a plethora of monetary valuation methods to measure social value on an equally diverse set of events. Rather than being applied to major sport events, the use of these methods in sport research has been limited to smaller events, programs, or facilities. Consequently, investigating monetary valuation methods for major sport events is necessary to inform practitioners and researchers of these types of events as to which tool(s) to use. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate various monetary valuation methods to determine which method(s) is(are) best to examine residents' social value in a post-event context and test the selected method(s) for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. After reviewing monetary valuation methods found in the sport management literature, two methods were deemed suitable avenues to pursue: the reverse contingent valuation method and the opportunity cost approach. This study employed an exploratory sequential mixed methods design to derive a conceptual and empirical analysis. Interviews were conducted with 14 Vancouver residents and supplemented with document analysis; as well, 525 Vancouver residents completed a self-administered online survey. Findings highlighted the importance of using both the reverse contingent valuation method and opportunity cost approach given their complementary nature. The reverse contingent valuation method allowed residents to select how much they valued their experience. This individual or micro-economic perspective is a necessary prerequisite for residents to adequately determine their value of hosting in relation to other options (e.g., building hospitals, having professional sport teams) when applying the opportunity cost approach, which asks residents to reflect at societal or macro-economic level. This synergistic approach demonstrates the importance of addressing both perspectives: the micro (i.e., individual exchange) and the macro (i.e., event exchange) aspect. In doing so, this approach offers researchers and practitioners avenues forward to examine the social value of publicly-funded major sport events exclusively through a direct, an indirect, and a synergistic method to advance the examination of major sport events' social value.

Residents' Perception of Intangible Benefits and Costs Associated with Hosting Major Sporting Events

The main purpose of this article is to estimate on the basis of inhabitants' perception the overall composite and aggregated scores of two major sporting events held in Ergo Arena hall, on the border of Gdańsk and Sopot, in northern Poland. The indirect aim is to identify the determinants affecting the monetary offers of the locals of the two cities. The research results unveil that major sporting events may determine the appearance of intangible social effects that are eagerly valued by the citizens of host cities. The resident's valuation ranges between 6.08 PLN (US$1.96) and 11.29 PLN (US$3.64) for intangible benefits, while between 1.75 PLN (US$0.56) and 2.21 PLN (US$0.71) for intangible costs, depending on the city and the event. The results determine an increase in the values of intangible net benefits. The amount of net intangible benefit is much lower than in the case of mega-sporting events. Nevertheless, it is more likely to host many major sporting events in a short time in one place. The regression analysis shows that the decision to allocate funds to support the Championships in 2016 and 2017 in Gdańsk/Sopot was made by people with high incomes, who expressed an interest in sport, but not necessarily in the sports discipline, and perceived intangible benefits, in particular civic pride and the feel-good factor. In turn, the level of WTPcostwas particularly high among people with high incomes who perceived the threats connected with the hosting of a major sporting event.

The financial challenges of hosting sports events: a problem of insufficient separation between decision-making and decision-control

ABSTRACT Research question: This article aims to explain that poorly functioning separation between decision-making, decision-control, and risk-bearing is a fundamental reason for the financial underperformance of major or large sport events. We look at empirical data from four major sports events hosted in Norway: The 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, the 2011 International Ski Federation (FIS) World Skiing Championship, the 2014 FIDE Chess Olympiad, and the 2017 International Cycling Union (UCI) World Road Cycling Championships. All these events suffered financially. Research methods: The study data were collected from 66 semi-structured interviews and different types of documents, like guides and reports filed by different stakeholders, applications for financial support, collaboration agreements, protocols of meetings, e-mail correspondence, financial statements, and budgeting documents. Results and findings: Through an examination of the previous literature, our analysis confirms drivers and symptoms of financial problems at sport events. These are: the exaggerated focus on legitimising the event, soft-budget practices, interference by political interests, and so on. We argue that many of these factors could have been handled better if a more consequent separation of risk-bearing, decision-making, and decision-control was in place. Implications: We propose a better separation between the decision-making and decision-control function, by means of a permanent and independent entity that is responsible for the decision-control function. Such an institution could enhance knowledge transfer, contribute competence and skills, and improve the financial outcome of a sports events.

Обучение олимпийских волонтеров в период пандемии

This article examines the process of preparing volunteers for major sporting events during a pandemic. According to the new requirements for holding public events, volunteers were forced to undergo training only in online format. Also, volunteers must have additional knowledge and skills to perform the tasks assigned to them. The volunteers’ views on the changes on the learning process for participating in the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2022 are considered.

Are Sports Champions Also Anti-Epidemic Heroes? Quantitative Research on the Influence of Sports Champions' Demonstration Effect on the COVID-19 Epidemic in China.

What kind of role do sports champions play in the COVID-19 epidemic? Do they contribute to the mitigation of the epidemic by some pathway? In this paper, we empirically explore the influence and mechanism of the demonstration effect of sports champions upon the COVID-19 epidemic using COVID-19-related dataset of prefecture-level cities in China from 1 January 2020 to 17 March 2020. The two-way fixed effect model of econometrics is applied to estimate the result, the instrumental variable approach is adopted to address potential endogeneity issues, and socio-economic factors including public health measures, residents’ self-protection awareness, effective distance from Wuhan are also taken into consideration. The results show that the demonstration effect of champions in major sporting events increases the participation in physical exercise, which in turn reduces the possibility of being infected with the epidemic. An increase of one gold medal results in a 0.93% increase in the sports population, then leads to a 3.58% decrease in the cumulative case growth rate (p < 0.01). Further, we find that the effect is greater in regions with developed economies and abundant sports resources. Interestingly, it is greater in regions with less attention to sports, which again confirms the role of the demonstration effect.

Perceptions of the Socioeconomic Impacts of A Women's Major Sporting Event in Africa

Major sports events have emerged as an important destination development tool for many developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This study aimed to assess the socioeconomic impacts of the 2016 Women African Cup of Nations (WAFCON) hosted in Cameroon. Taking the hosting cities (Limbe and Yaounde) as the case study sites, the study utilized a mixed-methods research approach. The data emerged from the 759 questionnaires distributed to the event attendees and 10 interviews with key informants. The study showed the event to have created employment and income generation opportunities in the host cities and have contributed to increased national pride and social cohesion. Also, the study found the event to have played an important role in the advancement of women in sport. However, the research revealed little leveraging of the event's socioeconomic opportunities for longer gain. The study concludes that female sports events, for destination development and the advancement of women's sport, is an important but neglected area of focus. The study argues for stronger collaborations and partnerships within tourism and sport stakeholders to ensure the positive advancements of female sports events are sustained.

Psychic Income Associated With Shanghai Tennis Masters and Residents' Attitude.

Using Shanghai Tennis Masters as an example, this study seeks to explore the psychic income associated with major sports events hosting and whether the psychic income would predict the attitudes of local residents toward events hosting. In addition, the moderating effect of sport involvement on the relationship between psychic income and attitude is also tested. In this study, a questionnaire survey is adopted. The structured questionnaire was developed based on 4 parts, including the demographics of the residents, involvement in the sport event, psychic income from the sport event, and their attitudes toward the sports event, there were 47 items in total. Data were collected from the local residents of Shanghai (including 16 districts or counties), as a result, 1,302 valid questionnaires were collected. A series of statistical analyses were conducted by using SPSS25.0 and AMOS 24.0 to examine the reliability and validity of the scales and to test the hypotheses. The results showed that the event has brought a significant level of psychic income to the local community, and the perceived psychic income would predict the attitudes of the residents toward the event hosting. The moderating effect of sports involvement on the relationship between psychic income and attitude is also confirmed.

Digitalization and Information Management Mechanism of Sports Events Based on Multisensor Node Cooperative Perception Model

In the process of developing major sports events, how to guide providers and users to provide and utilize the archives information resources of major sports events and realize the interaction between them is an important problem to be solved urgently in the development of major sports events and the archive service of major sports events. By analyzing the present situation of archive service of major sports events, especially the analysis of the opposite dependent subjects of service providers and users, we can see that the continuous development of archive services for major sports events will inevitably lead to constant changes in user groups and user needs, guided by the theory of information retrieval, knowledge management, and media effect. According to the service model of archive service of major sports events, the archive service model of specific sports events is constructed. In this paper, four kinds of event recommendation models are applied to the collected marathon event data for experiments. Through experimental comparison, the effectiveness of content-based recommendation algorithm technology in the event network data set is verified, and an algorithm model suitable for marathon event recommendation is obtained. Experiments show that the comprehensive event recommendation model based on term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) text weight and Race2vec entry sequence has the best recommendation performance on marathon event data set. According to the recommendation target of the event and the characteristics of the event data type, we can choose a single or comprehensive recommendation algorithm to build a model to realize the event recommendation.

The economics of sex work and major sporting events: Learning from the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Risk-taking in sex work is related to financial gains from condom-protected and condomless-acts alongside vulnerabilities, including socio-economic factors, which influence the safety of sex workers. Large international sporting events have been shown to significantly impact the economies of host countries, but there is a dearth of studies that examine how major sporting events may affect the economics of sex work and the risks taken by sex workers and clients. This study examines the determinants of the price of commercial sex alongside the price premium for and correlates of, condomless sex before, during and after the 2010 world cup in South Africa. We analysed data from three phases of repeated cross-sectional surveys with sex workers. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to examine the predictors of condomless sex. We also fitted fixed-effect regression models to examine the determinants of the price of commercial sex across each survey phase. Findings suggest that the price of sex was higher during the world cup compared to before and after, whilst the price premium for condomless-sex increased from 36% before the world cup to 40% (p-value<0.001) and 57% (p-value<0.001) during and after the world cup, respectively. Across the survey phases, anal, oral or masturbation sex were more likely to be supplied without a condom compared to vaginal sex. The type of sex was the primary determinant of the price of sex across all phases. We show indicative evidence that the 2010 world cup was associated with an increase in the price of sex and supply of condomless-sex. Although these findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causal relationships, we recommend that countries with substantial sex-worker populations that host major events shouldexplicitly consider the context and structures of sex work, and promote client-focused safe-sex-interventions that explicitly consider the economic pressures faced by sexworkers to provide riskier acts, to minimise health impacts.

Journalistic Coverage of Football in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: A Comparative Analysis between the Brazilian Women's And Men's Team

Although football played by women has been growing and gaining more visibility, in Brazil the media is responsible for the neglect of football played by women since it does not stimulate, disseminate and encourage it, making the sport continue to be treated amateur form when practiced by women. Even in the period before major sporting events, few relevant reports are published about the modality practiced by women, and even when published, they bring negative aspects about the sport. The evolution in the number of reports on football played by women is still far behind those related to men's football. Taking this context into account, the objective of the present work was to analyze the publications about the Brazilian men's and women's soccer teams published in the news pages of the Lance and Globo Esporte (GE) newspapers during the period of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The present study has a mixed approach and an exploratory and descriptive purpose through documentary research. Data collection was carried out through reports available on the pages of the Globo Esporte and Lance online portals during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (July 21 to August 8, 2021). All the reports about the Brazilian women's and men's soccer teams' participation in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games were collected. also to the fact that each team reached different stages of the competition. Regarding the content of the reports, it was found that in the male team, matters related to the technical and tactical analysis of the game stood out, while in the female team, the content on the behavior of athletes off the field had a more significant number.

Analysis on the Impact of Large‐Scale Sports Events on Regional Economy Based on SWOT‐PEST Model

Against the background of surging globalization and accelerating urbanization, more and more cities are choosing to reposition their urban landscape by hosting sports events at different levels to achieve a great leap forward in urban development. Major sporting events can quickly gather various resources from all over the country and even the world for a city, promoting it to become a world‐famous city with international influence. In the twenty‐first century, more and more Chinese cities are bidding to host important sporting events at different levels, but historical experience shows that hosting slightly important sporting events is a “double‐edged sword” and economic benefits are no longer the main reason for a city to host an event. Using the SWOT‐PEST model, this paper provides an in‐depth analysis of the advantages, disadvantages, opportunities, and challenges of marginally important sporting events of different levels affecting the regional economy from political, economic, social, and technological aspects, so as to understand in detail the economic impact of sporting events.

The Will of the Führer? Financing Construction for the 1936 Olympics

This article examines how construction for the 1936 Olympic Games was funded. Based on a range of previously untapped sources, it fills an important gap in the literature by examining how the Nazi regime financed signature infrastructure projects like the Olympic Stadium and the German Sports Forum, which together hosted most major sporting events during the Games. It also challenges the Nazi propaganda image, unchecked due to a lack of scholarly attention, that Hitler played a central role in bringing the Olympic stadium to completion. Indeed, by analysing the debates over who should pay for what and where the money should come from, this article will highlight what lay behind the ‘will of the Führer’: a convoluted administrative process involving different individuals and agencies, all of whom wanted to profit from construction without taking responsibility for it. In unpicking this myth, finally, this article will also address two further shortcomings in the literature: first, an imprecision over the motivation for Hitler's intervention in October 1933; and second, unsubstantiated claims about the sums Germany invested in hosting the Games, which will be shown to be grossly overinflated.

Impact of International Sport Events in Promoting International Attention of Cities

In order to raise the international attention and gain more competitive advantages, many Chinese cities are aiming at holding international sport events to promote urban development. However, previous studies indicated that international sport events have attracted international attention for hosting cities, but only stay at theoretical level of interpretation, empirical studies are scarce and needed. Therefore, the major purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of international sport events on urban development from the perspective of cities’ international attention, and to provide new dimensions and ideas for the relationship between sport events and urban development. This study used Google Trends corpus as the data source and used the Google Trends Index to measure five cities’ (Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu, Wuhan) international attention in order to analyze the impact of international sport events on hosting cities in China. Through data mining, this study collected weekly data of international attention (time range is from January 1st, 2014 to December 31th, 2018) of five cities and compared with major media events in the corresponding period when highest international attention appeared in each city. Using Pearson Correlation, correlation analysis of international attention (all categories) and international attention (sports categories) of five cities was tested. Valuable information was obtained through the relevant keyword search function of the search volume ranking to provide more comprehensive evidence for the empirical results. There was a significant correlation between the international attention (all categories) and international attention (sports categories) in these five cities, and Nanjing's data were the strongest (P=0.987). Through empirical analysis, the peak time of international attention in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu and Wuhan in recent five years was highly consistent with the major international sport events (Beijing IAAF World Championships, 2015; ATP1000 Shanghai Masters, 2018; Nanjing Summer Youth Olympics, 2014; ATP250 Chengdu Open ,2018; Wuhan Open ,2018), but the effect was negligible as the events ended. International sport events are an important dynamic attraction for hosting cities to gain more international attention, which can produce intense impulsive impact on each city's international attention. The effect of international sport events on hosting city's international attention is relatively short and concentrated, and there is no obvious long term effect. Finally, the international attention of cities has a relatively stable level from a long time perspective.

Risk Management of Sports Venues and Olympic Sports Cooperation Spirit under Complex Environment.

The understanding of sports event risk and Olympic sports cooperation spirit, as well as the systematic analysis and research of sports event risk management, are still in their early stages in China's sports theory circle. Institutions for developing sports talent also disregard programmes designed to increase the risk awareness and Olympic spirit of sports workers. This essay provides an overview of the concepts of sports event risk and Olympic sports cooperation spirit based on reality. This paper examines the interaction of risk management of large-scale sporting events and Olympic sports cooperation spirit from the perspective of event organization managers, using the pertinent theory of risk management and the random forest algorithm in machine learning. The experimental results show that, according to the analysis of injury occurrence according to different positions, it is discovered that forward athletes suffer the most injuries, with an average of 54 forwards in injury situations, followed by guards with an average of 43 guards in injury situations, and finally centres with an average of 38 guards in injury situations. Combining risk management for major sporting events with the cooperative Olympic sports spirit has significant practical implications.

THE EFFECT OF ORGANIZING MAJOR SPORTS EVENTS ON PUBLIC INTEREST IN SPORT – EXAMPLE OF THE 2018 EUROPEAN HANDBALL CHAMPIONSHIP ANALISED WITH GOOGLE TRENDS TOOL

The European Handball Championship (EHC), along with the Olympic Games and the World Championships, is the largest sports event in handball. In everyday practice, there is a need for exact measuring of interest for some activity or sport in a particular geographical area. The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of the organization of the 2018 EHC on public interest in Handball in the territory of the Republic of Croatia. Keywords entered into an Internet search engine can be a useful resource for analyzing the public interest. For the purposes of this study we used the Google Trends network tool for detecting interests before, during and after the EHC. The results show that the greatest interest for handball was expressed in Varaždin county, whereas the 5 top cities were: Varaždin (100%), followed by Osijek (63%), Zagreb (61%), Split (55%), and Rijeka (52%). The presented results show that the organization of major sports events as the EHC affects the increase of interest, and in the analyzed case the interest during the EHC increased up to twenty times compared to the average values (3.14% max values) that occur during the analyzed period.

VOLUNTEERS OF SPORT MEGA-EVENTS IN RUSSIA AND INDIA

The article is devoted to volunteers of major sporting events (sport mega-events) in Russia and India. The authors investigate the reasons that volunteers are guided by when deciding to participate in volunteering, their satisfaction from participating in the organization and holding of major sporting events, as well as their intentions to continue participating in volunteering practices in the future. In addition, the authors compare the motivation and future intentions of the Russian and Indian volunteers. The article also describes the reasons that, according to volunteers, hinder the development of volunteering in Russia and India. Volunteering during sport mega-events is becoming more and more common. The work done by volunteers allows not only to solve many organizational issues, create the necessary atmosphere, maintain security, but also shapes the image of the host, the necessary mood for participants and spectators. The relevance of the article lies in the necessity for constant improvement of volunteer programs to increase the number of volunteers and to further maintain their retention in volunteer activities. In addition, the implementation of volunteer programs for the organization and holding of sport mega-events can contribute to the formation of a positive legacy in the field of volunteering and to the development of the nonprofit sector. However, this requires obtaining detailed information about the volunteers of these events, their motivation and satisfaction. The empirical basis of the article is an online survey of volunteers of the European Football Championship and Indian volunteers of the Asian Boxing Championship. These events took place in Russia and India in 2021. The article presents both Russian and foreign experience in sports volunteering. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the comparative approach to the study of participants in volunteer programs of sport mega-events.

Exploring the Factors Affecting Behavioral Intentions of Spectators: Case Study of 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup

PURPOSE In this study, The event-destination image transfer model was used to predict and test the behavioral intention of spectators watching major sports events. Based on The Event-destination image transfer model, this study added place attachment as a new variable to investigate The influencing factors of audience decision-making process. METHOD This study sampled 500 spectators of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup held in Beijing, China. The 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup was held in Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Foshan and Dongguan on September 15, 2019. RESULT After spectators attend a mega-event held in a tourism destination, the event image positively affected the destination image. Destination image directly and positively affected spectators'' behavioral intentions toward the destination. Tourists'' overall attitude toward the destination was influenced positively by both the destination image and event image. CONCLUSION There are three significant antecedents factors for the behavioral intention of the destination, namely the image of the destination, tourists'' overall attitude towards the destination and place attachment. The destination image directly and positively affects place attachment. Place attachment directly and positively affects tourists'' behavioral intentions toward the destination.

SARS-CoV-2 Positivity in a Combat Sports Bubble.

The objective of this report is to describe a SARS-CoV-2 protocol and subsequent positivity rate for athletes and staff participating in combat sports events. Combat sports are among the most challenging to protect against the transmission of communicable diseases. Sports neurologists are often called on to take a leadership role in the safe management of these events. Our team was asked to provide a plan for pre-fight SARS-CoV-2 testing during the recent pandemic. As a result, we were able to successfully host 28 major combat sports events at a single venue with minimal exposure for staff and participants. Athletes and staff were tested for the SARS-CoV-2 virus with a PCR method. Samples were obtained via nasal swab upon arrival at the host hotel. All participants were then quarantined until the results were available. Those with negative tests were allowed to resume training in isolated pods. All participants were retested within 72 hours of the event. Those who were positive were quarantined off site for up to 2 weeks. Consultation was provided with an infectious disease specialist via telemedicine. A total of 8,135 tests were performed from July 1, 2020 until April 30, 2021 for the purpose of maintaining a safe venue. A total of 1,649 subjects were tested. There were 42 positive tests that resulted in an overall SARS-CoV-2 positivity rate of 0.516% for these events. Our sports neurology team was able to design and implement an effective plan to protect combat sports athletes and staff during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This allowed the safe continuation of 28 events. This protocol design can be implemented when dealing with future outbreaks of communicable diseases.