Hosting Mega-Sporting Events: Which Decision-Making Rule?

An economic impact assessment alone cannot justify public support for hosting mega-sporting events. A cost-benefit analysis in order to measure the net social utili- ty for the population is also relevant. Nevertheless, if there is always a high demand of economic impact studies by public authorities before hosting an event, the cost-ben- efit studies are never made, so there is a high risk to make decisions that are not rational. In this paper, to take into account simultaneously the economic impact and the social utility of mega-sporting events, we propose a legitimacy test we illustrate with the example of the Rugby World Cup 2007 in France.