By Thomas Peeters, Victor Matheson, and Stefan Szymanski
The World Cup, the Olympics and other mega sporting events give cities and countries the opportunity to be in the world’s spotlight for several weeks, and the competition among them to host these events can be as fierce as the competition among the athletes themselves. Bids that had traditionally gone to wealthier countries have recently become a prize to be won by prospective hosts in the developing world. South Africa became the first African host of the FIFA World Cup in 2010, and this summer, Brazil is hosting the first South American World Cup in 35 years. Russia recently completed its first Winter Olympics in Sochi and will return to the international stage in 2018 when the World Cup heads to Eastern Europe for the first time.
On the surface, this might appear to be a leveling of the playing field, allowing developing countries to finally share in the riches that these events bring to their hosts. A closer look, however, shows that hosting these events is an enormously expensive and risky undertaking that is unlikely to pay off from a purely economic standpoint.
Because of the extensive infrastructure required to host the World Cup or the Summer or Winter Olympics, the cost of hosting these events can run into the tens of billions of dollars, especially for developing countries with limited sports and tourism infrastructure already in place. Cost estimates are often unreliable, but it is said that Brazil is spending a combined $30 billion to host the Olympics and World Cup, Beijing spent $40 billion on the 2008 summer games, and Russia set an all-time record with a $51 billion price tag on the Sochi games. Russia’s record is not likely to stand for long, however, as Qatar looks poised to spend upwards of $200 billion bringing the World Cup to the Middle East in 2022.
South Africa fan in Johannesburg during World Cup 2010
Why do countries throw their hat into the rings to host these events? Politicians typically claim that hosting will generate a financial windfall For example, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the focus of our paper, cost the country $3.9 billion including at least $1.3 billion in stadium construction costs. The consulting firm Grant Thornton initially predicted 483,000 international visitors would come to the country for the event and that it would generate “a gross economic impact of $12 billion to the country’s economy”. The firm later revised its figures downward, to 373,000 international visitors and lowered the estimated economic impact to $7.5 billion. Following the event, a FIFA report stated that “309,554 foreign tourists arrived in South Africa for the primary purpose of attending the 2010 FIFA World Cup.”
Our analysis of monthly tourist arrivals into South Africa during the months of the event, however, suggests that the tourist arrivals were even lower than this. The expected crowds and congestion associated with the tournament reduced the number of non-sports fans traveling to the country by over 100,000 leaving the net increase in tourists to the country during the World Cup at just 220,000 visitors. This figure is less than half that of Grant Thornton’s early projections and a full third below even the lowest visitor estimates provided after the tournament. We estimate that the cost to the nation per World Cup visitor lies in the range $4,700 to $13,000.
Our results provide a cautionary tale for cities and countries bidding for mega-events. The anticipated crowds may not materialize, and the economic gains from the sports fans who do come to watch the games need to be weighed against the economic losses associated from other potential travelers who avoid the region during the event.
Thomas Peeters is a PhD-fellow of the Flanders Research Foundation at the University of Antwerp. His main research interests are industrial organization and labor issues related to professional sports leagues. His work has been published in journals such as Economic Policy, the International Journal of Industrial Organization and the Journal of African Economies. Victor Matheson is a professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He is the author of numerous studies concerning the economic impact of major sporting events on host countries and is a member of the executive board of the North American Association of Sports Economists. Stefan Szymanski is the Stephen J. Galetti Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan. His research in the economics of sports includes work on the relationship between performance and spending in professional football leagues, the theory of contests applied to sports, the application of sports law to sports organizations, financing of professional leagues and insolvency, the costs and benefits of hosting major sporting events. They are the authors of the paper ‘Tourism and the 2010 World Cup: Lessons for developing countries’, which is published in the Journal of African Economies.
The Journal of African Economies is a vehicle to carry rigorous economic analysis, focused entirely on Africa, for Africans and anyone interested in the continent – be they consultants, policymakers, academics, traders, financiers, development agents or aid workers.
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Image credit: South Africa fan in Johannesburg during World Cup 2010. By Iscar Blanco [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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This month-long series of blog posts will explain author websites and offer tips and writing strategies for an effective author website. It alternates between a day of technical information and a day of writing content. By the end of the month, you should have a basic author website up and functioning. The Table of Contents lists the topics, but individual posts will not go live until the date listed. The Author Website Resource Page offers links to tools, services, software and more.
The first step of creating an author website is to buy a domain.
OK, we’re jumping into the technical part of starting an author domain. If you’re only along for writing specific pages on your Author Website, you get a pass today. But come back tomorrow for writing.
Buy A Domain
Domain: A domain name is a unique name that identifies a website. It is usually precede by www and followed by .com, .net, .org or other specific designations.
Authors should own their own domain because it’s the most reliable way to build traffic and establish relationships with fans. You should buy and establish a domain in your name first; later, if you wish, you can add other domains for the titles of your book. For example, I own WWW.DARCYPATTISON.COM; but I also own domains for some of my picture books such as WWW.OLIVERKWOODMAN.COM.
The basic domain, though, should be your name with a .com ending. If the domain for your name is taken, you can consider using your initials and your last name, or other variations. Or, you can also try a .net, but this will automatically cut down on your traffic; you’ll have to work harder to get visitors to your site.
For the rest of these tutorials, I will refer to FamousAuthor.com, but that’s just a placeholder for your name. You should replace “FamousAuthor” with the domain you wish to buy.
Join me in August, 2014 the Boston area for a
one-day workshop, BUILD YOUR AUTHOR WEBSITE. I’ll also be teaching a Novel Revision Retreat and a one-day Picture Book Workshop.
Get the details here.
Let Your Hosting Company do the Paperwork
The easiest way to buy your domain is to combine this step with choosing a hosting company and allow the hosting company to handle the registration. This tutorial will walk you through doing this at two companies, AnHosting and Blue Host, but the process is similar at all hosting companies.
Hosting Company: When you have a website, it consists of a set of special files and those files must sit on some computer somewhere. A hosting company has sets of servers, the computers that connect to the Internet and serve up files. It’s a real, physical computer.
There are many hosting companies and many of them meet the minimum requirements for a WordPress site. However, WordPress recommends these: http://wordpress.org/hosting/. I recommend Anhosting.com and Bluehost.com as excellent starting places for your site. While these are two common hosting companies, you can also look at other companies recommended by WordPress..
HINT: When you start the process of setting up your website, you’re likely to use several Internet services. Take the time now to think about how you will save the login/password information. Both PC and Mac have “keychain” programs that provide a master password that accesses your passwords. It’s time well spent to set this up early.
CHOOSING A DOMAIN NAME
Before you start, decide what name you would like to use for your website. Usually an author’s website should be their name, as used on your book. If you use a pen name, you’ll want to use that name. Sometimes, however, your name isn’t available. Try other variations of your name until you find one that isn’t taken.
Avoid using hyphens in the name, even if you have a hyphenated last name, because it’s non-standard and harder to remember. Whatever name you finally decide upon, the main criteria is a domain name that is short and easy to remember.
ANHOSTING
I’ve had my blogs at Anhosting.com for several years an have always been happy. We’ll walk through the hosting set up for them first, and then for Bluehost.
- Go to http://www.anhosting.com and choose your domain name.
- Sign up for the basic package. At the time of writing, it’s only $5.95/month. (SPECIAL: 3 Months Free Web Hosting & 25% Off AN Hosting)
- You will receive an email from AnHosting.com with information on how to log into the back end of your site.
Great! Now, you have a domain and it is hosted at a great company. Time to set up the website.
BLUEHOST
Another option for hosting is BlueHost.com
- Go to http://www.BlueHost.com.
- Sign up for the basic package, which at the time of writing is $5.95/month for 12 months. Be sure to uncheck all options.
CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP FOR BLUEHOST.COM
- You will receive an email from BlueHost.com with information on how to log into the back end of your site.
Great! Now, you have a domain and it is hosted at a great company. Time to set up the website.
When I first signed up for a domain and hosting company about seven years ago, I cried all weekend because I couldn’t figure out what to do next. These days, hosting companies have tons of tutorials and videos to help you get settled in your new home. Tomorrow, we’ll write the About Page and the next day, we’ll go over important parts of the CPanel, the back end of your site. So, chill out and don’t cry. We’re taking it slow and easy.
Meanwhile, here are some tutorials from BlueHost:
BlueHost
