Hosting Major International Sports Events in a Country: A Socioeconomic Impact

This research focuses on the impact of sponsoring major sports events concerned with the socioeconomic aspects of Qatar. Context is the hosting of FIFA 2022 in Qatar. A questionnaire has been developed based on the underpinning theory, which included seven dimensions of measuring socioeconomic impact that covered Micro, Meso, Macroeconomic, Employment, Quality of Life, Social Cohesion and Environmental aspects. Questionnaire survey was conducted for a sample size of 126, which included the managers from tourism industry and sponsoring of sports events. The research methodology involved descriptive statistics calculations using MS Excel and SPSS. The response score was collected on a 5-point Likert scale for quantitative measures and the Mean, Standard Deviation, Kurtosis, Skewness and Frequency Distributions were computed for seven dimensions. The responses were later categorized into degrees of agreement with a priori scale to understand the relative impact of sponsoring sports events concerned with socioeconomic aspects. The results have indicated that, the highest impact would be on the creation of Environmental Consciousness among the citizens of Qatar followed by the impact on the Micro, Meso and Macroeconomic aspects of the country. These revelations have led providing suggestions to policy makers, which would be useful particularly in the present situation where Qatar is planning for FIFA 2022.