The Economic Impact of Participant Sports Events: A Case Study for the Winter World Masters Games 2020 in Tyrol, Austria

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have three main concerns that are needed to include in a major revision of the paper.

1.-  The references must be improved in a double way:
   * recent relevant refereces are missing
   * specific references to cost-benefit analyses in sport events must be included

2.-  The discussion provided involves a general reflexion for sport events, but not for master events.  If the paper is about master events author should remark this point.

3.-  The use of the panel of experts in not explained and justified.  In fact, these results are not even stated in the discussion.  

 Moreover I have some other points that could be better explained in the paper.

* Which are the "risks" of the self-response of the questionnaires?
* Are the respondants able to understand all the questions?

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the authors in identifying the participants.  It is a strong point of the work.

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank you for the valuable feedback and suggestions, which we have tried to address carefully. We have now attempted to integrate your comments, considering also the suggestions of the other reviewer and the AE. Below, we will address your comments in the same order as they appear in the report. In the paper, all our changes are marked in red so that you can easily follow the improvements we have made to the manuscript.

1. The references must be improved in a double way:
   1. recent relevant references are missing
   2. specific references to cost-benefit analyses in sport events must be included

Whereas we think that our conceptual framework is based on well-established, widely recognized, and high-quality studies, we fully agree that some recent studies related to event impacts should also be highlighted.  We have, therefore, included some recent studies related to event impacts (e.g. Wan and Song 2019, Zhang, et al. 2020) in the literature review (see lines 101-108 and 157-159). We also fully agree with respect to the references regarding cost-benefit analysis (CBA). In an attempt to rationalize the use of CBA in our study, we have added specific references (Dwyer 2019, de Nooij and van den Berg 2018, Késenne 2005) (lines 215-220).

2. The discussion provided involves a general reflection for sport events, but not for master events. If the paper is about master events author should remark this point.

As this paper focuses on the economic impacts of events from the perspective of masters events, and also tries to investigate and highlight the peculiarities of this special type of sports event, we have specifically tried to focus on these topics in the discussion section. In the first paragraph of the discussion, we have presented the results of the economic impact analysis (incl. cost-benefit analysis of the organizational resource flows), provided a comparison to another event, and highlighted the reasons behind the results. In the next two paragraphs, we have aimed to highlight the peculiarities of masters events and why they, perhaps, could be a serious option for cities and regions. The fourth paragraph is new (lines 687-707), which we have added based on the suggestions. We think this is an interesting addition from the perspective of masters events and, more broadly speaking, also from the perspective of sports events in general. Furthermore, in the fifth paragraph, we have stated what is new in our study from a methodological perspective and what we hope will be helpful for researchers interested in studying the economic impacts of the event.

Based on both reviewer reports, we have tried to improve the clarity of the discussion section. We hope it is now clear and coherent.  

3. The use of the panel of experts in not explained and justified. In fact, these results are not even stated in the discussion.

We have striven to rationalize the use of the focus group discussion in section 3.3. (lines 369-372). We have also discussed the findings of this qualitative part of our study, but fully agree that they were not clearly highlighted in the discussion section. Based on your comment, we have now addressed this issue, underlining more clearly which conclusions are based either fully or partly on the focus group discussion (see lines 657-659, 678-686). Additionally, thanks to your excellent point, we have also added an important new aspect to the discussion section, which was brought up in the focus group interviews, i.e. environmental aspects of sports events (lines 701-707).

4. Additional comments:
   1. Which are the "risks" of the self-response of the questionnaires?
   2. Are the respondents able to understand all the questions?

That is an excellent point as clearly, there are some risks in this kind of expenditure data acquisition. We have addressed these issues in the discussion section (in the paragraph on the study’s limitations), in lines 725-732.

We are hopeful that our revisions have improved the quality and coherence of the manuscript. However, should you notice a need for further improvements, we would certainly be prepared to revise the manuscript accordingly.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper entitled "The economic impact of Participant Sports Events: A case study for the Winter World Masters Games 2020 in Tyrol, Austria" focuses on estimating the payoff of the sports event (represented by the Winter World Masters Games held in Innsbruck, Austria) for the regional economy by assessing the impacts generated by participant spending and organizational expenditure. The paper's value-added is obvious: local, regional and central authorities always want to know about the economic benefits of various sports events. Recently, more and more people are interested in non-rivalry mass sport activities, such as various marathons, triathlons, races, etc. and an increasing number of people takes part in them. It is interesting to see what is the financial side of all these events and how they can impact on the locations that organize them.

The paper is well-structured and logical. It uses some non-trivial methods and approaches and provides interesting results. However, it needs to be refurbished and ameliorated further using some of the comments provided below: 

1. In the Abstract, the nature of WWMG should be better explained. WWMG is an international multi-sport event for 30+-year-old athletes. There are no competitive qualification requirements, nor entrance fees for spectators. Thence, it can be considered as a participatory sport tourism event and is therefore different from, say, Olympic Games or international bicycle races such as Tour de France.
2. In the Introduction, more information on massive sport events should be provided. There also drawn a distinction between commercial and non-commercial events.
3. I would suggest to enrich the Literature review with more sources evaluating the impact of major events (perhaps, of a similar nature like WWMG).
4. The selection of WWMG and Innsbruck should also be explained. Did the location impact on the profitability and other features? 
5. Even though this is somewhat out of the scope of the paper (WWMG was held in January, two months before COVID-19 pandemic started), it would be interesting to learn the author(s) opinion on the coronavirus pandemic and massive sport events. Currently, there is a large debate about how to go on with most of them during lockdowns and social distancing.
6. I recommend making a Conclusions section (instead of Discussion) at teh end of the paper which would summarize the results and provide policy implications and pathways for further research.
7. The paper might benefit from English proofreading.

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank you for the valuable feedback and suggestions, which we have tried to address carefully. We have now attempted to integrate your comments, considering also the suggestions of the other reviewer and the AE. Below, we will address your comments in the same order as they appear in the report. In the paper, all our changes are marked in red so that you can easily follow the improvements we have made to the manuscript.

1. In the Abstract, the nature of WWMG should be better explained. WWMG is an international multi-sport event for 30+-year-old athletes. There are no competitive qualification requirements, nor entrance fees for spectators. Thence, it can be considered as a participatory sport tourism event and is therefore different from, say, Olympic Games or international bicycle races such as Tour de France.

We agree. We have revised the abstract. Bearing in mind that the journal prescribes a word limit of 200 words for the abstract, it was, however, impossible to make major revisions. We hope our modification has improved the abstract sufficiently.

2. In the Introduction, more information on massive sport events should be provided. There also drawn a distinction between commercial and non-commercial events.

We have added information on the different types of large sports events, and briefly highlighted the differences in economic impact mechanisms between the WWMG and massive spectator sports events, on the one hand, and between the WWMG and other types of participant sports events (e.g. one-day marathon events), on the other hand (see lines 54-61).

3. I would suggest to enrich the Literature review with more sources evaluating the impact of major events (perhaps, of a similar nature like WWMG)

This is a very important point, which we have considered carefully. We think that the masters sports events are quite unique in terms of their economic impact, and, in fact, the literature on masters events or other large, international participant sports events is scant. We have, however, enriched the literature review with some references relating to classification / typology of sports events (e.g. Gammon 2011), and briefly summarized the current trends in event impact research (lines 94-112, 156-159, and 215-220) by highlighting some recent studies.

4. The selection of WWMG and Innsbruck should also be explained. Did the location impact on the profitability and other features?

This is, indeed, highly important. In fact, we think the location could have had an impact on profitability for two reasons: 1) the region is a well-known tourism brand and 2) it is favorably located close to many large European metropolitan areas. We think that this slightly influences the generalizability of the results and have, therefore, added this as a limitation (lines 720-725).

5. Even though this is somewhat out of the scope of the paper (WWMG was held in January, two months before COVID-19 pandemic started), it would be interesting to learn the author(s) opinion on the coronavirus pandemic and massive sport events. Currently, there is a large debate about how to go on with most of them during lockdowns and social distancing.

We would like to thank you for this excellent idea. In the “discussion” section, we have added a new paragraph describing the risks of unexpected events, which, perhaps, had not been observed prior to the global Covid-19 pandemic (lines 687-701). In this paragraph, we have discussed the risks from an economic perspective and reflected upon them in relation to the results of our study.

In the same paragraph, we also discussed another “hot” topic: sports events and climate change measures (lines 701-707). This issue was brought up in the qualitative part of our study (focus-group interviews), and we decided to discuss the issue in a bit more detail.

6. I recommend making a Conclusions section (instead of Discussion) at the end of the paper which would summarize the results and provide policy implications and pathways for further research.

As specified by the editor, we will have to keep the “Discussion” section. Therefore, instead of completely leaving out the “Discussion” section, we think it might be a good idea to change the title of the chapter to “Discussion and Conclusions” (line 646).

7. The paper might benefit from English proofreading.

Proofreading is completed by a professional proofreading service.

We are hopeful that our revisions have improved the quality and coherence of the manuscript. However, should you notice a need for further improvements, we would certainly be prepared to revise the manuscript accordingly.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I would recommend these references in order to reinforce the literature review and framework of your study:

• Burgan, B., & Mules, T. (1992). Economic impact of sporting events. Annals of tourism research, 19(4), 700-710.
• Kurtzman, J. (2005). Economic impact: sport tourism and the city. Journal of Sport Tourism, 10(1), 47-71.
• Salgado-Barandela, J., Barajas, A. Y Sánchez-Fernández, P. (2018): Determinants of the spending of sporting tourist: the case of attendees at professional basketball. European Research on Management and Business Economics, 24, 168-76. 
• Taks, M., Kesenne, S., Chalip, L., & Green, C. B. (2011). Economic impact analysis versus cost benefit analysis: The case of a medium-sized sport event. International Journal of Sport Finance, 6(3), 187.
• Wilson, R. (2006). The economic impact of local sport events: Significant, limited or otherwise? A case study of four swimming events. Managing leisure, 11(1), 57-70.

I totally agree with you about the “future” of Masters sports and it is relevant to have academic work that confirm this fact. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for recommending some further references to enrich our literature review and our conceptual framework. We think that all of them are interesting and some of them are also new to us.   We have decided to integrate all of the suggested references into our manuscript. They are now highlighted with red color as follows:  

1. Wilson (2006): lines 82-83 and lines 95-97. Additionally, the previously integrated citation (Gammon 2011) is also slightly modified (lines 98-100)
2. Salgado-Barandela, et al. (2018): lines 115-117
3. Kurtzman (2005): lines 163-165
4. Burgan & Mules (1992): lines 212-213
5. Taks, et al. (2011): lines 375-378

  We are grateful for your feedback and suggestions, and hope we have been able to improve our work sufficiently.   Sincerely,