ECONOMIC BENEFITS TO STATES & CITIES OF SPONSORING THE OLYMPICS
This research examines the economic benefits to states and cities of sponsoring the Olympic Games. As the term "states" is used in this research, the reference may be either a country or to a component of a federal system, such as a state in the United States. Among the issues addressed in this research are the following: (1) how states and cities generate revenues to support their sponsorship of the Olympics, as well as how such revenue generation may be maximized; and (2) the nature and scope of the economic benefits to a state or city of sponsorship of the Olympic Games.
The costs associated with staging sports events, including such massive venues as the Olympic Games, may be generated in a number of ways. One increasingly popular strategy is to persuade an entity external to the sport to underwrite such costs through a sponsorship arrangement. Sports sponsorship differs from both advertising and rights licensing. Rights licensing may involve an authority to produce and market products with themes of a sport or sports event, or the authority to broadcast sports events electronically. Sports sponsorship, by contrast, permits an entity to promote itself as an official sponsor of some sports event or sports team in return for underwriting all or parts of the costs of staging the event or operating the team in question. While advertising, rights licensing, and sports sponsorship all are associated with the marketing communications process, each activity fulfills a different role for both the sports event or team and the underwriting sports sponsor (Woodworth, 1992). Advertising, rights licensing, and sports sponsorship all, however, are strategies used by states and cities to generate revenues to support the sponsorship of the Olympic Games.
When one speaks of an entity external to the sports event or sports team that becomes a sports sponsor, one most oft...