A Simple-to-use Procedure to Evaluate the Social and Economic Impacts of Sporting Events on Local Communities

As pointed out by Matheson (2002) and Lee (2001), the validity of economic (and social) impact studies on sporting events is quite uncertain and inaccurate. Most of economists believe that they largely exaggerate real impacts on local communities since they are conducted by vested interest agents. Moreover, data availability problems join the issue, when local communities are analysed. Consequently, cities should instead rely on social and economic impact estimates carried out by research groups and/or research public institutions, which are expected to be impartial. As a result, jointly with the local government of the City of Seville, Spain, this paper provides a simple-to-use procedure to elaborate a yearly local system of occasional sporting events' ex ante evaluations of social and economic impacts. The empirical part has been developed for one of the tournaments of the XV Spanish National Championship of Beach-Volley 2005, hosted by the City of Seville.JRC.J.2-Competitiveness and Sustainabilit