The effect of the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cup tournaments on German national pride. A natural experiment

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have focused on the influence of major sporting events on different areas (e.g. well-being, life satisfaction, sport-related national pride), but their effect on national pride has been investigated insufficiently. A German cross-sectional dataset (ALLBUS) that was collected during spring and fall in 2014 and 2018 was used as time series data to measure national pride among the German population during the FIFA World Cup. To detect the relevant breaks during the observation period, an interrupted time-series analysis (Linden 2015) was performed. In 2014, when the German national team won the championship, there was a small but significant increase in national pride, and, in 2018, when the German national team was eliminated in the group stage, there was a small but significant decrease in national pride. However, in the case of Germany, these effects are temporary and, thus, are not sustainable.

KEYWORDS:

• National pride
• FIFA World Cup
• interrupted time-series analysis
• major sporting events
• sporting success

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• C22
• C49
• I31
• R50
• E00

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Sport-related national pride can be operationalized through questions like ‘How proud are you of Germany regarding its achievements in sports’ and general national pride through ‘How proud are you of being a German?’ (ALLBUS 2019). We suppose that these variables are connected, as the correlation of .50 indicates. We assume that sport related pride is linked to national pride, but that many respondents differentiate between the two concepts. The correlation and significant differences in the averages suggest that Germans are more proud of achievements in sports than proud to be German in general.