Relationship Between Satisfaction and Social Perception of the Negative Impacts of Sporting Events

Introduction

Sporting events can be tools for boosting the economy of the cities or regions that host them, as well as important promoters of their image. In this sense, some administrations have opted for a sports policy focused on the organization of events as an instrument to increase the influx of tourists and promote international recognition. This is the case of the Valencian Community, and more specifically the city of Valencia, which in recent years has become an international benchmark in the organization of major sporting events. During the last two decades, the city of Valencia has hosted numerous sporting events, of which most are qualified as “international scope” or “great international impact”.

Although the interest on the economic impact of this type of sports events has prevailed over the repercussion in other areas such as social and environmental, there are more and more jobs that focus their attention on the impact that sports events generate on quality of life of the residents of the host community. In this sense, know and identify social impacts will improve planning and management of sporting events at all stages, achieving sustainability and viability of the event (Parra, Calabuig, Nuñez, & Crespo, 2017).

In the field of research on the social impacts of sporting events, it is intended to know which variables contribute to explain the support or satisfaction of citizens with the reception of this type of events. Therefore, the efforts of the organizers and administrations must focus on knowing these variables and improving their management in order to prolong the legacy of the events in their city.

Thus, as highlighted by Thomson, Schlenker and Schulenkorf (2013), it is important to bear in mind that inadequate planning of the legacies of events in host cities or regions may lead to negative economic, social and environmental consequences, of an event for a long time. Hence, it is necessary to consider, evaluate and manage both positive and negative legacies, taking into account all stakeholders in order to maximize the positive and minimize the possible negative results inherited.

Sporting events have become key promotional tools for large cities, allowing outreach levels that would be economically unaffordable with conventional advertising. Furthermore, they have drawn the attention of managers and researchers because they are a uniquely important potential niche of economic intervention and exploitation. Not surprisingly, there is a large body of work aiming to rigorously determine the economic impact of holding major sporting events in cities (Preuss, 2004 and 2005), and economic assessment models have even been developed, such as TEIM: Travel Economic Impact Model (Frechtling, 1994), RIMS: Regional Input/Output Modelling System (Wang 1997; Donnelly, Vaske, DeRuiter, & Loomis, 1998), TDSM: Tourism Development Simulation Model (Donnelly et al., 1998), RIMS II (Wang, 1997), IMPLAN: Impact Analysis for Planing (Dawson, Blahna, & Keith, 1993; Donnelly et al., 1998; Wang, 1997), and, lastly, the proposal of Dwyer, Forsyth, and Spurr (2003), CGE: Computable General Equilibrium. A large part of the work conducted is focused on economic analysis, in line with the interests of governments and organizing promoters of knowing the profitability of public and private resources invested in holding the event.