Title: Planning and management of major sporting events: a survey

Authors: Ghaith Rabadi; Wael Khallouli; Mohammed Al-Salem; Ahmed Ghoniem

Addresses: Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, State of Qatar ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, State of Qatar ' Department of Operations and Information Management, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

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.

Keywords: event management; sports events; FIFA World Cup; Olympics; Olympic Games; attendance; visitor forecasting; transport; lodging; game scheduling; sporting events; sport planning; sport management; literature review; operations planning; infrastructure planning; logistics planning; sustainable development; sustainability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPS.2015.072122

International Journal of Planning and Scheduling, 2015 Vol.2 No.2, pp.154 - 178

Received: 18 Jun 2015
Accepted: 02 Aug 2015
Published online: 30 Sep 2015 *