Public sport funding in Brazil under the light of the punctuated equilibrium theory: the role of states (2002–2018)

ABSTRACT

In the last two decades, Brazil has hosted some of the world’s greatest sports events, the Pan American Games (2007), the FIFA World Cup (2014), and the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games (2016). Thus, dealing with the funding for sports and leisure in Brazil, this article aims to study the public funding of sport and leisure in Brazil at the state level and test the adherence of state funding for sport and leisure to the theory of punctuated equilibrium. This quantitative research was based on data regarding resources allocated by the Brazilian states budget between 2002 and 2018. The comparison of the sports and leisure area of public policy across states and with other areas of public policy confirms the central hypothesis of the punctuated equilibrium theory. Our data and results show how sports mega-events, together with political and economic events, were decisive for the punctuation of state funding for sport in Brazil. Also, we discuss how factors typically noted by the theory of punctuated equilibrium were important in agenda setting and affected the pattern of sports investments at the state level in Brazil.

KEYWORDS:

• Public sport funding
• punctuated equilibrium theory
• mega-events
• sport and leisure public policies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Some interesting texts that synthesize the theory of punctuated equilibrium and its evolution since it was first proposed are True et al. (2007), Boushey (2013), and Eissler et al. (2016).

2 For Brazilian states, the mandatory minimum percentages for the application of revenues for education and health are, respectively, 25% and 12%. For science and technology, the constitution allows states to legislate on the binding of a mandatory percentage of revenues to policies or institutions in the area. Several states have legislation guaranteeing a minimum application in this area, which varies between 0.3% and 3% of state income (Silva, 2000).

3 For the sake of synthesis, we do not present the histograms in the article.

4 The Human Development Index – HDI – is a measure that considers three basic dimensions of human development: income, education and health (Pnud, 2022).

5 The nominal deficit is one that does not include the payment of interest on the debt. From 2002 to 2013, the country had never registered a nominal deficit. The year 2002 marks a change in the methodology for calculating public accounts.

6 The 2014 nominal deficit was around R$23 billion. In 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, the numbers were approximately: R$120.5; R$161.2; R$124.2 and R$120.2 billion.

7 Data obtained from the IPEADATA Portal: http://www.ipeadata.gov.br/Default.aspx.

8 Vice-President Michel Temer's Party has already been trying to politically disengage itself from Rousseff's government since 2015. The document published by the party at the end of 2015, entitled “A Bridge to the Future”, is a great public demonstration of this desire for reversal. See the document at: https://www.fundacaoulysses.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/UMA-PONTE-PARA-O-FUTURO.pdf.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) [Finance Code 001], the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development [Grant number: 314017/2021-06], and the Instituto de Pesquisa Inteligência Esportiva (IPIE/UFPR) [Grant Number: SEI/UFPR 23075.040989/2021-59].