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The value of sporting success to Germans: Comparing the 2012 UEFA Championships with the 2012 Olympics

Journal of Business Economics volume 85, pages 897–919 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

We examine the value of sporting success to the German population at two major sport events in 2012, the UEFA European Championships and the London Olympic Games. Primary data were collected with a nationwide online survey of the German population (n = 359). Using the contingent valuation method (CVM), this study is the first to compare the value of sporting success between two events. The weighted results show that 57.5 % of the respondents stated a positive (>0) willingness-to-pay (WTP) for winning the European Championships title and 40.6 % for the first place in the Olympic medal table. Conversely, the findings indicate a lower average WTP for winning the European title in football (€40.74) than for Germany being ranked first in the Olympic medal table (€46.47). Regression analyses indicate that middle-aged individuals with low expectations of a good German result, low identification with the national team, but high personal importance that the team does well stated a significantly higher WTP for winning the title at the European Championships. For the first place in the medal table, females with a lower educational level, little interest in sports in general but high interest in the Summer Olympics including watching the Games, high expectations of a good German result, and a high identification with the German team reported a significantly higher WTP.

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Notes

  1. Due to this approach, the sample is based on two different groups: people from the area of Münster and people from different social networks. Therefore, we tested with a Wilcoxon rank-sum test whether the WTP differs between these two groups. The results show that there are no significant differences.

  2. The WTP for the European Championships and the Olympic medal table could also be jointly determined. This would require an alternative econometric approach, such as a seemingly unrelated regression analysis.

  3. We applied the (paired) t test because of its robustness (Bortz and Schuster 2010), although the data are not normally distributed. However, we compared the results of the paired t-test with the non-parametric Wilcoxon test and obtained similar findings.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the participants of the Scottish Economic Society 2013 Annual Conference for their precious comments on the presentation that preceded this article. They also thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sport Economics and Sport Management, German Sport University Cologne, Am Sportpark Muengersdorf 6, 50933, Cologne, Germany

    Pamela Wicker

  2. Institute for Organisational Economics, University of Münster, Scharnhorststr. 100, 48151, Münster, Germany

    Stephanie Kiefer & Alexander Dilger

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  1. Pamela Wicker
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  2. Stephanie Kiefer
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Correspondence to Alexander Dilger.

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Wicker, P., Kiefer, S. & Dilger, A. The value of sporting success to Germans: Comparing the 2012 UEFA Championships with the 2012 Olympics. J Bus Econ 85, 897–919 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-014-0761-1

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Keywords

  • Contingent valuation method
  • Public goods
  • Sport event
  • Sporting success
  • Willingness-to-pay

JEL Classification

  • D12
  • D61
  • D62
  • H41
  • H43
  • L83