Environmental Sustainability as Factor for Mega Sport Event Support—Empirical Evidence Regarding the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup

Abstract

Environmental sustainability (ES) has generally become an important topic in recent years. In this context, interest in the environmental impact of sport events has also considerably grown. However, not much is known about how people currently perceive ES in mega sport events (MSEs) and if this influences their support to stage a MSE in their home country. To shed light on this question, a survey was conducted in Germany, which resulted in a sample of 917 respondents. The data show that about one-third of them think that ES is adequately implemented in the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup. Around half of the respondents state they are in favour of hosting these events in Germany in the future and multinomial logistic regressions reveal that positive and negative perceptions of the ES of the events are important predictors of support and opposition. The same is true for the perception of the overall brand image of the event. The findings have important implications for future bidding processes because they show that the further development of ES in MSEs might have an influence on the support for hosting these events in Germany and potentially other Western democracies.