Applying multi-criteria decision aiding methods to the process of selecting a host city for sporting event

Abstract

Various decision-making problems that occur in the process of sporting event management can be formulatedas multi-criteria issues and solved by appropriate methods. One of them is choosing the best, the most suitablehost city for sporting event. On the one hand, organisingsuch an event, especially a large one, is consideredas an opportunity for the hosting area, both the cityand the country. In addition to image promotion, integrating people, increasing the sport cultureand recognition on an international stage, it provides many economic benefits, for instance increased employment, additional tourist income, trade boost and direct investments leading to urban development.On the other hand, hosting a sporting event is a huge and costlyundertaking. Thus, countries and cities wishing to do that have to prove that they are well qualified to be a host. In the location selection process the following factors may be considered: economy and finance, infrastructure, safety and security, experience with sporting events, access and lodging, environment and meteorology, and many others. Bearing that in mind as well as some controversial decisions from the past, for example those regarding the choice of Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups, it is extremely important to select the host city properly, in the most transparent and effective waypossible. To do that, multi-criteria decision aiding methods can be used.The goal of this article is to carry out a simulation of the host city selection decision, using multi-criteria outranking techniques, based on the 20th edition of the World Athletics Championships, which are scheduled to be held in 2025.

Headnote

Published online: April 30, 2020

(Accepted for publication: April 15, 2020)

DOI:10.7752/jpes.2020.s2149

Abstract:

Various decision-making problems that occur in the process of sporting event management can be formulatedas multi-criteria issues and solved by appropriate methods. One of them is choosing the best, the most suitablehost city for sporting event. On the one hand, organisingsuch an event, especially a large one, is consideredas an opportunity for the hosting area, both the cityand the country. In addition to image promotion, integrating people, increasing the sport cultureand recognition on an international stage, it provides many economic benefits, for instance increased employment, additional tourist income, trade boost and direct investments leading to urban development.On the other hand, hosting a sporting event is a huge and costlyundertaking. Thus, countries and cities wishing to do that have to prove that they are well qualified to be a host. In the location selection process the following factors may be considered: economy and finance, infrastructure, safety and security, experience with sporting events, access and lodging, environment and meteorology, and many others. Bearing that in mind as well as some controversial decisions from the past, for example those regarding the choice of Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups, it is extremely important to select the host city properly, in the most transparent and effective waypossible. To do that, multi-criteria decision aiding methods can be used.The goal of this article is to carry out a simulation of the host city selection decision, using multi-criteria outranking techniques, based on the 20th edition of the World Athletics Championships, which are scheduled to be held in 2025.

KeyWords: hosting-right, techno-economic criteria, MCDA, PROMETHEE IIv, EXPROM IIv, modified ELECTRE III

Introduction

Since organizing and implementing sporting events includes a number of complex procedures (Cardoso et al., 2006), sporting event management is inseparable from decision-making, specifically from multi-criteria decision-making,as manyevent-related issues require choosing the best, i.e. the most suited alternativefrom a set of available options, considering a number of vital factors(criteria) when comparing them. This is mainlybecause of organizers' decisions. In addition to defining and developing event objectives, strategies and tactics, they are, for instance, related to the event budget, host city and venue selection, supplier selection, sponsor, broadcast and media solicitation as well as hiring, training and firing of event staff (Supovitz& Goldwater, 2013). Moreover, experience learns that frequently either there is more than one solution to a specificdecision-making problem, or its complexity is so high that it goes beyond the capacity of a human mind (Kiaffas&Afthinos, 2013). In addition, contemporary sporting event management must respond to the growing ecological awareness of society and the pressure of institutions responsible for shaping human-natural relations (Białkowski, 2017). Besides, if we are dealing with international sporting events, whose network nature is connected with organizational links between cities, sports associations, the media, sponsors and other stakeholders, all procedures become even more difficult and complex (Majewska, 2019). Therefore, to make a sporting event a success, appropriate decision-making needs to be made, starting from hosting-right, going through the opening ceremony, and ending up with the event's finishing phase, while at the same time taking into account that decision-maker may be either an individual or a group of people (Babatunde&Ighravwe, 2019).

According to the outcomes of various studies (see Russo & Rosen, 1975; Montgomery &Svenson, 1989; Larichev, 1992; Payne et al., 1993; Korhonen et al., 1997), multi-criteria decision-making problems pose a serious challenge for people, and the more criteria the problem comprises, the more complicated it is (Ashikhmin&Furems, 2005).There are a few approaches dealing with this type of problems, for instance: multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) (see Keeney &Raiffa, 1976), outranking relation approach (see Roy, 1990), verbal decision analysis (VDA) (seeLarichev&Moshkovich, 1995, 1997), and the MACBETH method (seeBana e Costa &Vansnick, 1997; Bana e Costa & Chagas, 2004).Furthermore, in order to determine a synthetic performance index (single variable) for many individual aspects (various variables), Taxonomic Measure of Development introduced by Hellwig (1968) or Pattern Normalization proposed by Mūller-Frączek (2019) may be used.

The purpose of this article is to apply 3 multi-criteria outranking methods, namely EXPROM II with veto threshold (Górecka, 2014, 2015; Górecka &Szałucka, 2013), PROMETHEE II with veto threshold (Górecka, 2013, 2014; Górecka &Muszyńska, 2011; Górecka &Pietrzak, 2012), and modified ELECTRE III (Górecka, 2009), to the problem of the host cityselection. The paperwill demonstrate the usefulness of the abovementioned techniques with a real-life example of 2025 World Athletics Championships. The framework presented in the paper uses economicand financial as well as technical criteria such as accommodation, healthcare, climate and meteorology or infrastructure. This framework can be used for other sporting events to make the host city selection process rational and transparentfor all concerned. Since there are not many publications on this subject (Karaca et al., 2019; Babatunde&Ighravwe, 2019), the paper will contribute to filling the gap in the literature.

Material & methods

The current study shows the application of multi-criteria decision aiding methods in the sporting event location assessment process. It is based on the example of the 2025 World Athletics Championships, organized by World Athletics (formerly IAAF - International Association of Athletics Federations).The World Championships - the jewel in the crown of the World Athletics' global competition programme - is a biennial athletics competition, the third largest sporting event in the world (after Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup), engaging athletes from up to 212 nations competing for 49 gold medals, and watched by billions of TV viewers all around the world (World Athletics, https://www.worldathletics.org/hosting/iaaf-events/world-athleticschampionships, 25.02.2020)

Many countries in Africa, namely Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa, as well asone in Australia and Oceania, namely Australia, have already expressed an interest to host the event. Thus, 7 locations were considered in the analysis: Alger (Algeria), Cairo (Egypt), Nairobi (Kenya), Rabat (Morocco), Abuja (Nigeria), Durban (South Africa), and Gold Coast (Australia).

Evaluation criteria (variables) were identified through the literature review and based on World Athletics' expectations as well as on information about bidding processes for different sporting events. The location's attractiveness, its potential - including its country - to host, organise and stage successful World Athletics Championships in 2025, is measured through the 8 major dimensions (general criteria), which are represented by the selected 30 variables (secondary criteria). Table 1 presents the 30 indicators (variables) reflecting the 8 dimensions of the model, along with their specifications.

In order to rank locations from the most to the least suitableone from the perspective of sporting event location, the EXPROM II method with veto threshold (Górecka, 2014, 2015; Górecka &Szałucka, 2013; cf. Diakoulaki and Koumoutsos, 1991) was first used. The method is based on the conceptof ideal and anti-ideal solutions and,thus, it enablesrankingoptions in a cardinal scale, which is desirable from the point of view of comparing the alternatives considered. Moreover, thanks to the introduction of the veto threshold, EXPROM IIvis partially compensatory, which means that a very bad score on one criterion cannot be offsetby even a very good score on other(s) (Górecka &Szałucka, 2013; Chojnacka& Górecka, 2018).

Another advantage of EXPROM IIv and also the reason why it was used wasbecause it is user-friendly, i.e. simple and understandable. Its steps are neither very complex nor computationally demanding and, thus,they can be (and they actually were) performed in a spreadsheet and quite easily explained to the decision-maker(s). Furthermore, this technique enablesobtaining a complete pre-order of the options to which the points are assigned. Final solution in this form is considered as being convenient and convincing for the potential users of MCDA methods (Górecka &Szałucka, 2013; Chojnacka& Górecka, 2018).

In order to examine the influence of changes in the weighting coefficients for evaluation criteria on the final rankings of locations, 3 different vectors of weights were determined. The first (I) and the second (II) ones were created with the help ofHokkanen&Salminen'sapproach, version 1 and 2 (Hokkanen&Salminen, 1994, 1997) respectively. In the thirdvector (III) all measures were considered equally important. The model of preferences for the decision-making problem, containing the weights and the values of indifference (q), preference (p) and veto (v) thresholds, is shown in Table 2.

Results

Table 3 presentsthe final results (rankings) receivedin a spreadsheet using the EXPROM II technique with veto threshold and 3 different vectors of weights. The higher the value of the net outranking flow, the better the assessment of the location from the point of view of hosting-rights.

The rankings provided in Table 3 showthat the results are sensitive to the changes in the parametersof the model of preferences as the modifications of the values of weights caused somealterations in the ordering of locations.

Despite the fact that the rankings received are not fully compatible, it is possible to determine,on the one hand,the location which is the bestas the host city for World Athletics Championships in 2025 (Gold Coast in Australia), and on the other hand, the set of locations which are not appropriate for this event (Abuja in Nigeria, Alger in Algeria, Cairo in Egypt, Durban in South Africa, and Rabat in Morocco). Nairobi in Kenya may be classified as 'contentious' because in 1 case itsfinal score (value of net outranking flow) is positive, and in 2 cases - negative.

In order to examine the influence of the choice of method on the final rankings of the locations, 2 other outranking techniques, namely PROMETHEE II with veto threshold (Górecka, 2013, 2014; Górecka &Muszyńska, 2011; Górecka &Pietrzak, 2012) and the modified ELECTRE III method (Górecka, 2009), were used. The solutions received with their help are shown in Tables 4 and 5 respectively. In both cases 3previously mentioned vectors of weights were employed to demonstrate the impact of changes in the values of weighting coefficientsfor evaluation criteria on the final rankings of locations considered.

It is noteworthy that, once again, the rankings yielded are not in total agreement. Nevertheless, they do not differ much from each other. Therefore, it is possible to determine the location which is the most suitable for hosting the 2025 edition of World Athletics Championships (Gold Coast in Australia), the locations which are quite good (Nairobi in Kenya in the case of the PROMETHEE II method with veto threshold1; Nairobi in Kenya and Rabat in Morocco in the case of the modified ELECTRE III method2), and the set of locations which are the least suitable and should not be considered for organization of this event (Abuja in Nigeria, Alger in Algeria, Cairo in Egypt, Durban in South Africa, and Rabat in Morocco in the case of the PROMETHEE II method with veto threshold3; Abuja in Nigeria, Alger in Algeria, and Cairo in Egypt in the case of the modified ELECTRE III method4).

Moreover, it should be emphasised that results receivedusing 3 different MCDA methods are alike. This statement can be confirmed by the values of Spearman rank correlation coefficients shown in Table 6. These values, calculated independently for each of 3 vectors of weighting coefficients considered in the research, indicate the existence of strong positive associations between the ranks locations obtained in different orderings.

In summary, the analysis conducted has revealed that the solutions received are quite robust to changes in the values of the parameters of the preference model (the weights of evaluation criteria to be exact). It has also demonstrated that the rankings of the locations are not sensitive to selection of the decision-aiding method.

In view of all the results obtained and the whole analysis performed, the most suited location for hosting 2025 World Athletics Championships turned out to be Gold Coast in Australia. It is the most preferred location according to all 3 decision-aiding methods, regardless of the vector of weighting coefficients used.Another location that can be considered - allowing for all the results of the research conducted - is Nairobi in Kenya, which is the second-most preferred city according to all 3 techniques, regardless of the weights placed upon the evaluation criteria. This location can be tempting since in 2017 Nairobi hosted successfully the IAAF World Under-18 Championships, attracting record crowds. The attendance in events held in Africa has always been top, which is particularly important in the context of the 2019 Championships in Doha (Qatar), which were held in empty stands.

Discussion

Taking into account that the host city selection problem requires a systematic approach, a reliable framework for assessing the applicant cities has been presented in this article. It describes the utilization of 3 MCDA outranking methods,which are regarded as user-friendly ones, namely EXPROM IIv, PROMETHE IIv, and the modified ELECTRE III, in choosing a location for 2025 World Athletics Championships. There are several competing cities (7) and many conflicting criteria (30) that should be considered in selecting the most suitable one. MCDA methods are viable tools allowing for improving the decision-making processes. They can help decision-makers to takethoroughly thought-out and responsible decisions: by using 3 aforementioned techniques it is possible to choose the best location in a rational, transparent, free of suspected corruptionway, which can be examined and understood by all stakeholders. Thus, this article may contribute to making trustworthy and confident location decisions for sporting events, which is extremely vital, especially in the context of some past hosting-right decisions that were questioned and/or did not work out well, for instanceawarding the World Athletics Championships 2019 to Doha in Qatar.

Conclusions

The scientific framework presented in the article can be used in the case of different sporting events all over the world. Moreover, it can be adapted to other (non-sporting) events, for instance trade fairs, shows, concerts, exhibitions, festivals, workshops or conferences. MCDA outranking methods used within the proposed framework can refine the evaluation process and make decision-making more efficient as their assumptions are consistent with reality. Nevertheless, we must not forget that the results of the analysis are heavily dependent on the dimensions and measures that are used within it. Hence, they should certainly be tailored to each case's specific conditions.

Footnote

1 The values of net outranking flows determined for them are in all cases positive.

2 The differences between the number of locations outranked by them and the number of locations that outranks them are in all cases non-negative.

3 The values of net outranking flows determined for them are in all cases negative.

4 The differences between the number of locations outranked by them and the number of locations that outranks them are in all cases negative. Durban in South Africa can be named as quite bad since the differences between the number of locations outranked by it and the number of locations that outranks it are non-positive.

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