Who profits outside the stadium? food trucks, micro-entrepreneurship, and economic inclusion in sporting events

While sporting events create economic value off the stadium, this aggregated impact cannot provide the information needed to understand who can access the market and what economic value is being generated for them. Traditional measures focus on the direct costs and benefits of the visitor, such as spending and employment, and on the broader economic impacts, while there are some methodological challenges that have been identified and warn against exaggerating the extra spending and attributing all activity that occurs during the event to the event itself (1)(2)(3). While a few evaluations include indicators of business participation and employment, they do not necessarily reflect business viability for smaller businesses to access viable business opportunities. We believe that economic inclusion can be used as a complementary evaluation tool with a focus on access and distribution of benefits related to the events. This argument is not "out of the blue" but develops on the existing scholarship around informal enterprise, street vending and urban commercial space governance. De Soto (7) pointed to the complex nature of regulatory and institutional frameworks that hinder informal entrepreneurship, and the International Labour Organization (8) noted the diversity of informal employment and the vulnerabilities in labour and economic security. It is important to mention that these views are not intended to imply that deregulation is enough to ensure inclusion; there is a need for proper labour, food-safety and public space regulation. Hummel (4) and Cuvi (5) explored the street vending during the 2014 FIFA World Cup in São Paulo, and Recchi (6) placed informal street vending in the broader arena of livelihoods and urban regulation. The present Opinion builds on these contributions and is not intended to uncover an hitherto unknown economic phenomenon. Instead, it builds up existing discussions on informality, regulatory access, and economic engagement to a tentative model for analysing sport-event economies when it comes to access to and distribution of commercial opportunities and benefits.The issue of commercial access becomes especially apparent in the context of food trucks, due to the speed at which they operate, the temporary nature of their operation, and the multiple ownership models used by food trucks. They are not, however, synonymous with informal street vending and are not necessarily significant throughout sporting cultures. Local owned trucks, itinerant businesses and franchises might be subject to significantly different conditions. Likewise, there are varying regulatory regimes and commercial motivations that are associated with community competitions, periodic league games and international megaevents. Instead of the assumption of a uniform matchday economy these differences are the subject of our argument.The term invisible sports economy is used as an analytical term for commercial activity which relates to sporting events but is not formally connected to them or only partially connected, both in terms of the commercial activity of enterprises and the demand for the activity. Being invisible does not mean being illegal, non-registered or not being recorded in official statistics in its entirety. No, it's not just the geography that means an event connection. Examples of relevant evidence could be increase in event day sales, spectator purchases, event hours, and/or temporary relocation. These indicators are offered as potential criteria for recognising event-related activity but are not intended to be an empirically based classification system. What is happening is not unique to sport; it happens at concerts, festivals and any other shortterm events too. It is particularly relevant to sports management because of its relationship to competition schedules, how venues are governed, sponsorship rights, and related control of commercial space. The study of informal employment arrangements by De Soto (7) and the ILO's evidence (8) in regard to institutional barriers to informal enterprises and the diversity and vulnerabilities of informal jobs complement each other for purposes of examining these arrangements. The consequences of sport mega-event development and governance for host communities are further demonstrated by Rocha and Xiao's (9) systematic review of residential displacement linked to sport mega-events, which also found that there is a lack of evidence to directly conclude food-vendor exclusion. The invisible sports economy is therefore suggested as an analytical way of engaging in broader discussions of informality, commercial availability and distribution of opportunities for sport events.Examples can be found throughout the documented cases of the importance of governance. In 2014, during the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in São Paulo, event-related commercial arrangements were studied and the impact on the street vendors was investigated, as well as on their livelihoods (4,5). The London 2012 Olympics Research found that Central Greenwich (10) was the location of exclusion and resistance by local businesses. Also included in the research on the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa was a street traders' exclusion from event-related opportunities (11). The cases do not involve food trucks per se, but rather street traders and local businesses. Moreover, their focus on high-profile events may not be applicable to regular matchups in leagues or to smaller, local events. Commercial restrictions may be justified from a governance standpoint due to the pedestrian safety, sanitation, crowd control, contractual conditions, and food quality considerations. Proportionality and impact, however, need to be assessed in the context of smaller businesses. The ILO's (8) efforts on informal employment also highlight the need to account for the vulnerability of the workers and their access to labour protections. We therefore advocate for considering event-related vending in both regulatory terms and commercially accessible terms and not presume that informal participation is always a good thing or that all restrictions are exclusionary.While food trucks might be able to meet locally high demand, there is no mobility advantage. Event related sales might be offset by transport, equipment, staffing, energy, permits, and varying customer numbers. The evidence collected from Tamil Nadu food-truck owners does not prove a point for the stadium vendors around the world (12). In many places, traditional stalls and permanent restaurants might be the more culturally appropriate or economically important type of restaurant. For this reason, food trucks are not a universal part of sportingevent economies food trucks are included as an example of mobile enterprise.The assumption that food trucks are good for host communities is made harder by the fact that the food trucks are owned.The fact that the food trucks are owned complicates the assumption that food trucks are good for host communities. Locally owned businesses can reinvest profits in the local area and buy-in supplies locally, while itinerant franchises can be based locally and export profits elsewhere. On the other hand, local ownership does not imply local sourcing, and locally owned operators might hire locals. Empirical studies of employment, procurement, operating costs, ownership structure and geographical destination of profits are needed for these possibilities. Likewise, provision of mobile food can reinforce the regional food identity or can reflect the menu, which might be homogenized, thus reinforcing the homogenization of food consumption during sporting events. These results should be explored not presumed.Another qualification of importance is environmental performance. Environmental costs can come in the forms of vehicle movements, generators, packaging, food waste and sourcing arrangements and may not be less than the costs for fixed concessions. There are a number of systematic reviews that have focused on environmental impacts within the context of key sporting events (13) and on environmental sustainability and responsible event-management (14). These contributions highlight the importance of assessing environmental performance, not taking for granted sustainability of mobile food provision. Increased participation of entrepreneurs must thus be taken into account in the context of the environment, food safety and labour requirements. Economic inclusion and environmental responsibility are not synonymous but complementary goals.The centralized hospitality option can be preferred by the sport event organizers because exclusive contracts, sport event-funding contracts through sponsorships and specialized catering services can provide them with predictable income, operational consistency, and accountability. Whether such arrangements limit or prohibit the independent vendor's participation depends on the commercial and regulatory terms of specific events, however. We suggest that another area of procurement in fan-zone and hospitality management will be added, where the specialized agencies will have a greater preference for engaging longestablished operators, as opposed to individual micro-enterprises. This needs to be explored and not assumed to apply to all sporting events. Likewise, minimum service capacity, insurance requirements, participation fees and standardized operating procedures may pose relatively higher service entry requirements for smaller businesses than for franchises and multi-unit businesses. These mechanisms are discussed as propositions rather than as something that needs to be proven for everyone. A study of procurement criteria, characteristics of applicants, permit decisions, trading locations and actual vendor earnings should be examined in the future to evaluate the equality of the commercial opportunities that ostensibly neutral arrangements create.Commercial involvement is not assumed to go hand in hand with spectator demand, as witnessed in the cities of São Paulo, London and South Africa (4,5,10,11). To support this as a proposed management response, the selection criteria used to choose event hosts and public authorities could be made transparent, permit fees could be proportionate to the size of the event, the selection process could be open and applications could be made easily, while there could be designated opportunities for qualifying local enterprises to apply. Such arrangements would need to be assessed within the specific context of each sporting event for the feasibility and effectiveness. These should not deny or override valid contractual, safety and operational needs, but assume that informal participation does not necessarily benefit.Sporting-event economic inclusion is defined provisionally as the degree of sporting-event economic access, success and equity for enterprises with differing resources, in which commercial arrangements allow them to access sporting-event markets on fair and viable terms; gain meaningful sporting-event market economic benefits; and operate without compromising decent jobs or responsible operation. This definition builds on the work done so far by economic-impact approaches, and introduces a new element: recognising distribution of opportunities as an evaluative concern, rather than a benefit from participation. A vendor's presence or gross revenue is not sufficient to prove successful inclusion. Eventrelated net operating benefit should be calculated as the total event-generated revenues less the costs attributable to the event, costs of labour, permits, transport, energy, unsold inventory and other operating costs. To the extent possible, this outcome should be compared to earnings from an alternate day of trading to reveal extra benefit, rather than just shifting business activity. Economic inclusion can also be measured by local wages, procurement and retained operating surplus, all of which are important, but on their own are not enough to indicate local impact. The economic returns from an enterprise can be significant, but not significant local economic returns, and the two should be assessed separately.We suggest 6 provisional assessment dimensions: market accessibility, participation diversity, economic viability, and economic retention in the area, decent working conditions and continuity of benefits (Table 1). Those dimensions should be reported separately until future research provides evidence of the measurement properties of those dimensions and the defensibility of a composite index. Additionally, their applications demand context-specific definitions of the host community and a suitable comparison time. An inclusion-based evaluation for sports managers would broaden the lens of evaluating visitors' spending and vendors beyond the conditions under which commercial opportunities are distributed and the benefits that they create. Future studies could look at the difference between independent and franchise operators, explore the procurement process in recurring fixtures and mega events, and evaluate net vendor outcomes with matched event and nonevent trading days. Successful and unsuccessful permit applicants could be interviewed to uncover additional barriers missed in participation statistics. These assessments would be useful to help conclude if there is meaningful difference in economic opportunity and benefit in the proposed dimensions.Part of this agenda should be the issue of responsible governance versus increased access. The right to be included is no excuse for unsafe food handling, precarious jobs, unmanaged waste and free public space. On the other hand, compliance requirements for smaller businesses should not simply be imposed on them because they are deemed necessary for "legitimate" safety and environmental objectives. Clear and fair procurement and regulatory processes provide a more even playing field than blanket commercial exclusion or unrestricted vending. However, their practical effectiveness should be demonstrated on a case-by-case basis.It is also crucial to differentiate between local economic stimulation and sporting-event legacy. Recurring fixtures can offer the same income opportunities over and over, but they do not necessarily change the host economy. In cases of more substantial legacy claims, evidence of enduring changes in enterprise capabilities, employment, institutions or commercial relationships should be included (15). It is important to note, however, that such linkage with SDGs 8, 11, and 12 should be interpreted as potential policy options, not actual impacts of food-truck engagement. Mobile vendors should not be substituted for the four areas of economic inclusion, decent work, sustainable urban development and responsible consumption.The proposed framework is still in a conceptual form. The indicators need to be backed up with empirical evidence and evidence from an exceptional mega event cannot be automatically carried over to smaller competitions. However, it poses a relevant and operational question on sporting event governance: "Are there commercially viable and accessible opportunities for enterprises beyond the existing hospitality networks that are locally beneficial and responsible? Sporting-event success should not be judged solely in terms of the economic activity they generate but also by conditions and consequences of participation.