ABSTRACT
Sports events have been used to entice and retain mobile capital in the time beyond the actual event. However, some studies show that outcomes from events hinge on the ways they are used according to the previous establishment of their purposes (Baade & Matheson, 2002; Chalip & Leyns, 2002; Pennington-Gray & Holdnak, 2002). Frequently, the benefits foreseen by the host communities of sports events do not occur due to an insufficient planning and implementation of event goals, weakening the strategic management of the sports events (Chalip & Leyns, 2002). In order to increase gains in sports events, Chalip (2004) started a new line of research, focusing on a pre-event strategic approach, for which he created an economic and a social leverage model (Chalip, 2004, 2006). However, few studies have applied these models to a real portfolio
of events and the author alerted to the necessity of further empirical evidence. O’Brien (2007) applied the economic leverage model (Chalip, 2004) to analyze a surf festival, concluding that smaller sporting events can also have the potential to contribute to the development of the community. In fact, small-scale sports events have been recognized as a significant way to develop competences to host major events, and to complement the scale of the events hosted by the community (Chalip, 2005; Higham, 1999; Higham & Hinch, 2002; Wilson, 2006). In this line, Gibson, Kaplanidou, and Kang (2012) showed the importance of a portfolio of six small-scale events to the tourism development of the host community. A portfolio approach is desirable to capitalize on a set of events in order to maximize synergies among them and their benefits to host communities (Ziakas & Costa, 2011a).
