Technology and economic impacts of mega-sports events: A key issue? Exploratory insights from literature

Mega-sport events such as Olympic Games or Football World Cup are always presented as providing the hosting nation and/or city with huge benefits. Supporters of such events quote economic, social and cultural impacts for the region as well as contributions to scientific and technological progress and innovation. obviously, they need to politically justify the impressive and growing financial investment required by organizing Olympic Games or World Cup. The article aims at looking at a quite abundant academic literature with the objectives of defining the various potential impacts and the methods used for their assessment. It concludes that there is no universal and scientifically valid model for evaluating the benefits of mega-sport events and that organizers should be very cautious when arguing in favor of deciding to host such events.