International prestige through ‘sporting success’: an evaluation of the evidence

Abstract

A central argument for public funding of elite sport is the claim that success at the Olympic Games or world championships leads to increasing international prestige for cities and states. While this assumption seems plausible in general, it clearly lacks specification. Given this, we first discuss here several theoretical approaches in order to unpack which forms of prestige can be sought by states in which kind of sports and events. Second, we summarize the (rather limited) state of empirical research on the topic. Third, secondary data, offering possible indicators for sport-induced changes in international prestige, are presented and discussed. The resulting picture reveals that the formula ‘the more success, the more prestige’ is too simple. The paper concludes by suggesting methodological approaches towards a more systematic analysis of states’ use of sport to acquire international prestige.

Keywords:

• Elite sport
• prestige
• international relations
• nation branding
• soft power

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

Notes

1 Freeman (2012) has also suggested to adopt the concept of (military) ‘swaggering’ for the analysis of sport. However, apart from the important notion that struggle for international success in sports is often rather driven by individual ambitions of (sport) policy leaders, this theoretical approach does not seem to add much to the soft power approach. Freeman (2012, 1263–1266) emphasizes a close connection between the concepts, but the differences, advantages and disadvantages are not made quite clear.

2 Retrieved from http://www.sportcal.com/Impact.

3 Retrieved from http://www.pewglobal.org/category/datasets/.