p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 3.
0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Times New Roman’}p.
p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 3.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Times New Roman’}span.s1 {letter-spacing: 0.
0px}World sporting events have created way for Sport tourism has received growing attention as a source of generating significant revenue and contributing major economic benefits to host cities, regions, and countries. However, current methods for assessing economic impact have had variable success in estimating tourist numbers and expenditure directly attributable to a sport tourism mega event. In 2002, Japan and the Republic of Korea were the first countries assigned to co-host the World Cup. FIFA was eager to expand their most popular event to Asia for the first time; initially intended to award the event to Japan, but felt forced to change it’s course after Korea joined the bidding process. Among these politicians and policy-makers and soccer experts, though, it is inevitable that the World Cup automatically would bring in a massive income for the host nation. The World Cup attracts significant numbers of tourists from the participant countries to the host country. Although the main purpose of these travels is to attend the games, it can also work as an important mechanism to start, build, and improve trading networks for businessmen. In addition, potential visitors might be attracted to the venues after the tournament due to their exposure during the games.
As noted in Poole (2010), international travel helps buyers and sellers transfer information about local culture, customs, and markets, creating an efficient business relationship. Therefore, the World Cup can help the host and participant countries to diminish the informational and cultural barriers to trade.The overall economic effect of Japan hosting the World Cup in 2002 is estimated to be approximately $24.7 billion. Although there is large income, spending funds do come with it; including training camp facility and new stadium construction, etc., Japan spent $4.3 billion in preparation for the World Cup. In the short-term for Japan, it had been a tremendous aid to the local economy.
According to Szymanski (2010), “The Dentsu Institute in Japan has forecast that the Japanese share of World Cup will generate a combined total of $11 billion to produce a long-term boost to the economy of $26 billion.” This is the amount by which they predict Japanese GDP will increase above the level expected without the World Cup. It is equivalent to an increase in GDP of six-tenths of one percent. Considering that Japanese economic growth has averaged only 1.
1% per year over the last decade, this represents an enormous boost. Also, In addition, foreign business organizations in both countries may have easier access to policy makers to lobby for lower protection and reduced bureaucracy and procedures because of the World Cup. Therefore, larger sports events may also work as an important channel to decrease the bilateral trading costs and thus contribute to the trade between the host and the participant countries. Along with this economic growth, Japan was mainly able to release tension and gain a better bilateral relationship with Korea due to the World Cup being shared in both countries.The 2002 FIFA World Cup in dual host Japan, allowed for media and sponsorship, draws of thousands of international tourists, and provided important global showcase opportunities for the country to improve their visibility and exposure. It also works as a channel for the host and the participant countries to reduce the cultural and informational barriers between them. Therefore, the World Cup brings many mechanisms to promote trade between the host and the participant countries.
Japan Super LeagueThe idea of the J. League began talks in the late 1980’s, but it received very little national attention and essentially no international interest. Although soccer had been played for over a century at the time, it had not been able to surpass baseball, sumo, or golf. In 1991, the J. League was incorporated and the first match was played in May of 1993, with intentions to make a greater impact and change to the sporting culture in Japan. In Football in Asia: History, Culture and Business, it mentions that it was an exceptional case of bringing in a whole new market that would total a cumulative flow of $5.4 billion over the first ten years (Cho, 2014, p.
125). The J-League has become a basis for its national team and can be attributed to why they have made qualified to the last 4 World Cups. But, the J. League as a whole benefited from the World Cup in 2002, both through the general promotion of soccer in Japan associated with the World Cup and specifically provision of more attractive showcases for their games. The high mass media exposure from the media reporting and advertising also was a huge boost for the J. League.
Soccer was the ‘new, improved product’ being marketed in Japan in the eyes of Japanese marketing professionals. Although, Cho states “Manzenreiter, however, suggests causal links between the success of J. League clubs and sponsoring engagements by firms as well as the support by local communities are responsible for the J-League’s success” (2014, p. 126).
In July 2016, The J-League inked 10-year deal worth 210 billion yen, or $2.05 billion, with the British-based media company Perform Group for the digital rights for its matches within Japan. It states that Perform will begin streaming matches in 2017 from the top three tiers of Japanese soccer through its online platform, DAZN. This can potentially be the turning point for soccer in Japan and possibly internationally. J. League’s chairman, Mitsuru Murai states “I think that we are now in the second group of leagues after the first group, which includes the English Premier League and the Bundesliga in terms of revenue… We still need to make a great effort to make the J.
League more attractive and brand the league for international fans. (Duerden, 2016)” With the incorporation of this new deal, it seeks to compete with Chinese clubs in the transfer market for players.
