ABSTRACT
An important feature of major sport events today is that they have become so commercially focused, driven by business corporations from the worlds of global media, marketing, sports apparel and event organising, that their staging clusters vast volumes of transnational capital. The Summer Olympic Games and the football World Cup are the archetypal mega-events in this regard, because of their size and levels of participation and the revenues they generate. Although smaller in scale, second-order events such as the Commonwealth Games or the rugby or cricket World Cups have also become highly commoditised. 2 The commercial nature of major events partly explains their appeal to many aspiring hosts from across the globe – be they national governments or urban authorities – for which hosting such an event offers a chance to lure capital and tourists, and which seek to leverage the much-lauded branding opportunities that such an event can afford.
