Hosting major sports events: the challenge of taming white elephants

While the literature on the economic impacts of major sports events has grown considerably over the years, the question of utilisation of venues built for these events after the party is over has received little attention. This article fills some of the gaps in the literature. By means of a Stadium Utilisation Index, it measures the post-event utilisation of venues that were constructed of significantly refurbished to host major sports events in the period from 1996 to 2010. It reveals some of the challenges facing the utilisation of the venues once ‘the circus has left town’. The regressions identify that private owned stadiums have a higher rate of utilisation than publicly built venues. The stadiums with the highest capacity tend to have higher utilisation. Last, but not least in terms of importance, stadiums in nations with a high degree of corruption had the lowest utilisation.