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Executive summary
The past decade has witnessed a shift from an economic-centered approach toward a more comprehensive one in studying the impact of hosting sporting events. Among other things, social impact of mega-sporting events has attracted growing academic interests. While the existing literature mainly studied the social impact of sports events after the host city has been awarded the event, the aim of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the social impact of mega-sporting events on non-local residents during the bidding stage, and how this expectation would affect the support and attitude of the residents toward the event bidding.
Using Beijing's bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games as an example; an empirical survey study was conducted in which data were collected from residents in Shanghai, comprising a sample of 483 respondents. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) identified 40 items loaded on eight distinctive factors that underlie the expected social impact of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Among the eight identified impact factors, six were found to be positive and two negative. While all factors were significantly higher above the point of indifference, perceived positive impact factors tended to outweigh those that were negative. In addition, seven out of the eight factors were found to be significantly predictive of support for Beijing's bidding: while the effect of "tourism and environment," "social capital and psychic income," "international cooperation and exchange," "infrastructure," "national image," and "sport development" was positive, the effect of the "higher living cost" factor was negative with regard to the support of the bidding.
Introduction
Over the last 30 years, the effects of hallmark sporting events have represented a major field of research in the sports management literature. In addition to the globalization of sports competitions, academics throughout the world are studying the different effects of mega-sporting events on local communities (i.e. all the individuals who are affected).
According to Getz (2012), "mega" refers to "high levels of tourism, media coverage, prestige or economic impact for their host community." Therefore, Gratton et al. (2006) suggested four main perspectives: economic impact (Maening and Zimbalist, 2012; Preuss and Alfs, 2011; Thibault, 2009); sports development; media and sponsor evaluation (Meenaghan, 2001); and place marketing effects (Ritchie and Smith, 1991; Westerbeek and Linley, 2012). Frey et...