ABSTRACT
This chapter ties in with the previous chapters insofar as the connection between sport infrastructure building, social politics and the rationale of contemporary policy makers is addressed once more. The case under investigation is a single one, albeit a very special and distinctive one which is outstanding because of its symbolic and material dimensions: It examines Japan's experience in hosting (half) the 2002 FIFA World Cup. In particular this case study addresses the very practical questions about the kind of benefits hosting authorities anticipated from the sport mega-event, what kind of policy and implementation measures were used to achieve the goals and how actualized outcomes matched with expectations. Drawing on macroeconomic data from official sources and a secondary analysis of an ex post survey among local bureaucrats in charge of Japan's ten World Cup cities, this case study gives fresh insight into the political economy of sport mega-events. By highlighting both the business of sport events and the politics of hosting, the chapter seeks to fulfil three objectives. First, it integrates the so far largely neglected Asian experience into social scientific debates on sport mega-events. Second, it provides evidence on the nature of the commonly purported, yet hardly ever realized economic benefits of hosting by contrasting national with regional economic indicators. Third, it illuminates the variety of motivations and aspirations causing regional authorities to bid for such actually costly endeavours. Bringing the World Cup finals to Japan (and South Korea) was part of a larger programme initiated in the late 1980s by the Japan Football Association in cooperation with major players from the domestic political scene and the global ‘sport industrial complex’. For FIFA and its corporate partners, the general aim of popularizing football in Japan and the broader Asian region meant getting a foot into a largely underdeveloped market on the continent with the largest population share and the most dynamic economic growth rates (Manzenreiter and Horne 2007). For the local politicians, the World Cup was a welcome opportunity to put the names of their cities onto the map.
