Mega sporting events are rich in symbolism that has made them attractive to cities and nations as a vehicle for signalling to a global audience a host’s openness to trade, tourism and investment, and as a catalyst for potentially transformational infrastructure programs and urban renewal. However, they have given rise to a symbolic economy with adverse features making hosting extremely costly, leading to increased political resistance in potential host regions. Proponents of hosting mega sporting events claim they will generate an economic boom, but much of the literature finds otherwise. This article critically reviews past studies which value either economic or intangible net benefits of mega sporting events, before developing an illustrative example to elicit how past methodological problems and misapplications can be overcome through a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis that accounts for all economic and intangible net benefits, properly treating all legacies arising from an event’s symbolic capital.

中文翻译：

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重视举办大型体育赛事的价值：象征价值、经济和无形影响

大型体育赛事具有丰富的象征意义，使它们对城市和国家具有吸引力，作为向全球观众表明东道主对贸易、旅游和投资持开放态度的工具，并作为潜在转型基础设施计划和城市更新的催化剂。然而，它们催生了具有不利影响的象征性经济，使出租成本极高，导致潜在主办地区的政治阻力增加。举办大型体育赛事的支持者声称，它们将带来经济繁荣，但许多文献并非如此。本文批判性地回顾了过去重视大型体育赛事的经济或无形净收益的研究，然后开发了一个说明性示例，以引出如何通过全面的成本效益分析来克服过去的方法论问题和误用，该分析考虑了所有经济和无形净收益，正确处理了赛事象征性资本产生的所有遗产。