Buying Loyalty at the Track? Formula One Grands Prix and Civil Unrest

This article provides an empirical investigation of potential noneconomic consequences of hosting a major sporting event. Using two datasets of civil unrest events, I test if hosting a Formula One Grand Prix is associated with changes in social and political unrest days. Using propensity score matching, coarsened exact matching, and GMM estimation, results provide limited evidence that hosting a Formula One Grand Prix is associated with fewer days of unrest, suggesting that hosts may see political benefits from hosting major sporting events. However, there is some heterogeneity depending on the dataset used. This article contributes to the discussion examining political benefits and costs of hosting large sporting events, which may need to be taken into account along with the financial benefits and costs.