Champions of Earnings
In late months of 2009, notwithstanding the crisis, 1,000 delegates attended the London Sport Conference. Polls conducted on them have shown that revenues are on the increase, particularly sponsorships. Sports arrive ever more easily into people's homes and each sporting event maximizes its economic return by exploiting the visibility of its protagonists. Sport is used a platform for national and international communication. For instance, Liverpool will promote Spain as "Official destination partner", since its manager is a Spaniard, and so are many of its players. UEFA has just signed a €32 million agreement to broadcast the Champions League in Croatia, although the country does not have very strong football clubs. Giro d'Italia is internationalizing its appeal with sites and athletes that are well-known around the world to stimulate media purchases.
The value of sporting events has grown dramatically with TV rights and the global popularity of certain sports whose appeal was recently only local. The globalization of sports events, which started with Olympic Games and the Soccer World Cup, is now spreading to other competitions. The study on the potential economic impact of having a Formula 1 Grand Prix in Rome, cites €1 billion in terms of value added and 10,000 jobs created. Rome recently hosted the World Swimming Championships and has made €45 million in revenues just for having hosed the Champions League finals last May. Hosting a major sport event requires large investments in infrastructure and often involves the revitalization of cities and neighborhoods. The planned investment of Chicago, had it won the competition to host the 2016 Olympic Games, would have been €3.3 billion, generating revenues for €3.8 billion. Milano was European sport capital in 2009, hosting 60 sport events where athletes from 120 nations competed. Sport events not only generate economic returns, but yield additional urban, social, and political benefits. The 2009 edition of the Tour de France was physically followed by 15 million people. After the Olympics, it is the world's favorite live sport event. Milano's candidacy to Expo 2015 is a byproduct of Olympic planning. Turin after the 2006 Winter Olympics has become specialized in managing big sport competions.
Summing up, one need to look not only at the economic impact, but needs to consider the intangible effects that remain on the ground after the event is over. Vancouver, host of the currently unfolding 2010 Winter Olympics, has seen the foundation of "2010 Legacy now", the first organization of its kind working on developing sustainable heritage in terms of sports, arts, entertainment, philanthropy. These are opportunities for cultural managers that are attentive to the needs of stakeholders. Of course they shall not forget that when it comes to sport, l'important c'est de participer.