Planning and management of major sporting events: a survey

Abstract

This paper provides a review of the literature on planning and managing mega sports events with a focus on the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics Games. Much of the literature has considered different sports or planning aspects in isolation, resulting in a large, yet scattered, body of works produced across different research communities. Our objective is to offer a cohesive discussion of this literature by examining salient topics related to operations and infrastructure planning. Of particular interest are studies related to attendance and visitor forecasting, transportation and logistics planning, infrastructure planning and sustainable development, operational planning and scheduling considerations in the context of mega sports events. We conclude this survey by a discussion of directions for future research in this field.