Defining Sports Tourism - Essay Example

Daniels also recognizes that sports tourism is a realm to explore to increase an economic situation in a particular location. Adding sports teams or events to a geographic location can increase the local economy and will encourage spending in the area by those who are either participating or are spectators of the particular sporting event. She also adds that though some people like the idea of adding a sports team to their community for the entertainment value, it can be quite costly for the area.

This is because a new stadium would have to be built and in turn, it could be publicly financed through taxation in the community. Therefore, this would, in theory, even out the economic status of an area. Though it increases visitors to come to watch a sports team play in a large new arena, it can hinder the local residents by having to deal with additional traffic, having to pay for law enforcement officers to work the events, and even having to contribute to the city through taxation to allow for various roads or whatever means it would take to create a stadium.

While it stimulates the local economy, it could also hinder it. Although Daniels acknowledges that many communities host sports events in one way to entertain, it is also to stimulate the local economy. She also concludes that even though sports events hosted in a certain area can boost a local economy, it can also hinder certain areas that are not well equipped to handle as many people as a large scale mega event, for example as the Olympics, the Super Bowl or the World Series. Amateur sporting events, however, have little impact on the existing economy according to Daniels, unless it is an amateur sporting event that lasts over an extended period of days.

The sporting events can increase tourism in areas that have offers additional attractions, services, etc and Daniels' central place theory helps predict which geographic locations (primarily based on the size of the city or town) would benefit best from sporting tourism and development due to the resources that are already available within that locale, particularly urban areas. However, there are many other factors that also come into play. The event that Daniels used as an analysis to test this theory is the United States National Softball Association where a youth girls' World Series was held in 2001 in locations of North Carolina and South Carolina that were near to each other.

One city, Mecklenburg, was located near Charlotte and had a population of 650,000 people while the other city, York, South Carolina had only 170,000 people. The tournament was centralized in Mecklenburg with the event being held within one facility while in York, the tournament was in four different locations throughout the city. The week-long event had over 300 teams and over 20,000 in attendance between the two cities. Spectators were given questionnaires about how long they were staying, how far they had traveled to get to the tournaments from their hometown, what their primary reason was for coming as a spectator and what their expense habits were while there.

Data were analyzed from the results of these questionnaires and found that expenditures in both cities were approximately the same per person though lodging and dining were significantly higher in Mecklenburg.