Global sports has been a topic of interest for many people around the world for years. Fans love to watch their favorite teams and home countries compete against others. The most common international sports include soccer, cricket, and the Olympic games.
Typically, these sporting events bring in millions of people around the world to the hosting countries. For example, the 2022 FIFA World Cup brought in over 3 million tourists to Qatar to enjoy the tournament. In terms of profit, Qatar generated 1 billion USD aside from the hotel fees, cuisine and local experiences.
Since this trend of economic growth was directly related to the FIFA World Cup, Qatar suffered an economic fall after the event.
Despite Qatar’s economic drop following the event, other small countries have started to increase investments in regards to global sporting events. With an economy of a small scale, the introduction of popular games such as FIFA and the Olympics, would bring more people to visit the country.
Sports fan Prajay Gutti recalls his wishes of experiencing a FIFA game. “Me and my friends have always wanted to go to a FIFA game. I want to see Ronaldo play and experience outside countries’ culture together,” Gutti explained.
Recently, many Middle Eastern countries have followed this trend by spending billions of dollars to improve their presence in the world of sports. This includes refurbishing stadiums and offering multi-million dollar contracts to famous players.
PV Tennis coach, Randy Brockhage, believes tennis has the potential to grow as more money is invested into the sport. “Tennis is a sport that definitely can be changed for the better. Personally, I went to tennis facilities down in Cincinnati and Houston, both of which were quite huge with many courts. If more countries spend money to make the tennis conditions better, more players and spectators are likely to come,” Brockhage stated.
As the spectating conditions are improved, more people are likely to travel internationally to spectate big sporting events. Likewise, more people are willing to travel to watch their favorite player compete, leading to higher profit margins.
In addition to this, many big countries, such as Saudi Arabia, have even started to invest in American businesses. Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, has invested money into Formula 1, a primarily American sport division.
“Sports are going to become more popular as it gets more spread out, so more people are caught up and know general things about it. Outside countries certainly can invest money into these sports, knowing that it will result in a profit for sure, as we can see with Saudi Arabia and Formula 1,” Brockhage mentioned.
Formula 1 is the world’s fastest growing sport. If Formula 1 ever pushes into international competition territory, Saudi Arabia could potentially be one of the first hosting choices as they have investments within the competition, coming back to the resulting profit.
With all these economic boosts in mind, many Middle Eastern countries are hopping on the trend of investing money into their sports industry. In the future, it is possible to expect many athletic events taking place in the Middle East.
