What can a large sports event bring to the society?

The World Cup is only two days away and this year’s World Cup is held in Russia. Recent years, it seems that many developed countries are losing their interests of holding such large sports event and many developing countries are competing for this kind of opportunities. However, in the past, developed countries held the majority of these events. Such behaviour change is understandable.

In the past, especially during the Cold War period, sports events were very important opportunities to show the countries’ strengths. However, after the Cold War, such motivation disappears and developed countries no longer need such opportunity to show their muscle. Meanwhile, some developing countries become richer, so they need to show others and their own people that their countries are growing stronger to bring in more opportunities, including investment opportunities and trade opportunities. In addition, cities in developing countries may not have sufficient funding to build so many sports centres and infrastructure at the same time; however, if they can hold such major events, they are able to be sponsored by their centre governments and have a boost of their urban development.

In the future, there are highly likely to be more and more cities from developing countries to host many of these world sports events.