ABSTRACT
Although the FIFA men’s World Cup and the Olympic and Paralympic Games were awarded to countries from different continents in past decades, their greater magnitude and importance as media events in recent years has seen a dominance of host venues from countries considered as economically developed (Black, 2007; Horne & Manzenreiter, 2006). The 2008 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games marked the beginning of a period where cities hosting mega sports events were to be increasingly located in geographically new territories such as South Africa (FIFA, 2010a, 2010b), Brazil (FIFA, 2014; Summer Olympic/Paralympics, 2016), Russia (FIFA, 2018; Winter Olympics/Paralympics, 2014) and Qatar (FIFA, 2022). Similar diversification has been seen in those events referred to as ‘second order’ (Black, 2008) or special events (Roche, 2000), with India hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games and Singapore the new Youth Olympic Games in 2010.
