FIFA U-20 WC Economic Impact Assessment Released

[loyola]

FIFA U-20 World Cup

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 Economic Impact Assessment Released

The economic impact assessment of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 was released today by the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance. The tournament was conducted from 30 June to 22 July in six Canadian cities, specifically Victoria, Burnaby, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal.

The event contributed approximately $114 million to the GDP and generated an estimated $259.02 million in economic activity throughout the four host provinces. The combined total of the visitor expenditures, operational expenditures, and capital construction costs of the event totaled just over $108 million. These expenditures supported over $74 million in wages and salaries and approximately 1,700 jobs. The initial expenditure generated over $8.5 million in direct tax revenue, and when accounting for the re-spending of the initial expenditure through the economy (indirect and induced impacts), resulted in the event supporting more than $43 million in taxes at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.

'The FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 was a huge success across the country,' said National Event Director Peter Montopoli. 'The tournament’s success is a real credit to the Canadian public that supported this event from coast to coast. Canadians really embraced this tournament and made it the huge event that we had envisioned.'

The competition featured more than 750 athletes, coaches and officials and an additional 68,770 out-of-town spectators.

'The Government of Canada is proud to have been a major funding partner of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007, the largest single sporting event ever held in Canada,' said Secretary of State (Foreign Affairs and International Trade) (Sport) Helena Guergis. 'Hosting this major international sporting event provided Canada with a legacy of infrastructure, community, sport, and economic development for generations of Canadians.'

'Our Canadian friends demonstrated that they have an incredible hunger for sport and an ever-growing enthusiasm for football - or soccer, as it is called in North America,' said FIFA president Joseph S. Blatter. 'Hosting the FIFA U-20 World Cup will no doubt continue to spur development of our sport across the nation, which is already reflected in the improving levels of players’ technical skills as well as in wonderful new facilities such as Canada’s National Soccer Stadium in Toronto.'

'Sport tourism is about economic development - creating jobs and economic benefits for whole communities,' said Rick Traer, CEO of the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance. 'The tournament dramatically impacted local and regional businesses in the host communities and also provided excellent ROI on the public sector’s investment in the event through the taxes and employment figures generated in key sectors of our economy.'

The FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 set a tournament record by attracting 1,192,168 spectators to the 52 matches. All six Canadian sites played a major part in setting the record. Toronto and Burnaby were sold out for the duration of the tournament, while Victoria and Ottawa both played to more than 95% capacity. In Montréal, the FIFA U-20 World Cup recorded the third-highest attendance for a quarterfinal match (46,252 fans on 15 July). In Edmonton, fans more than doubled the previous attendance record for the Canadian team at a FIFA U-20 World Cup (32,058 fans on 8 July).

The tournament was also broadcast to more than 200 countries and territories around the world. In Canada alone, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation provided more than 110 broadcasts and 220 hours (live or tape delayed). Every game was also broadcast live via the internet on both CBC.ca and FIFA.com.

The event featured teams from 24 countries, including five teams from CONCACAF (North America, Central America, Caribbean), four teams from CONMEBOL (South America), six teams from UEFA (Europe), four teams from CAF (Africa), four teams from AFC (Asia), and one team from OFC (Oceania).

The Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance conducted the study in partnership with Canadian Heritage (Sport Canada), Canadian Soccer Association, FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 National Organizing Committee, City of Toronto, Economic Development Edmonton, Tourism Burnaby and Tourism Vancouver. To conduct the assessment, the CSTA used STEAM PRO (Sport Tourism Economic Assessment Model Ð Professional version), which measures the economic impact of a sport event on a community.

A total of 6,714 valid on-site surveys were conducted and collated at the game venues, providing the survey results with a confidence interval of +/- 1.5%, 19 times out of 20. The survey was conducted using the Techneos Entryware Pro System, which features the Entrywareª Designer software program for preparing the questionnaires as well as Entrywareª for Palm OS running on handheld PDA’s for data collection.

A copy of the full report is available in on the website at: www.canadiansporttourism.com

About CSTA

The Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance is a tourism industry led organization that promotes sport tourism as an economic development initiative at the community level. The CSTA services over 175 members across Canada, including approximately 95 municipalities, 55 national sport, multi-sport and major games organizations and variety of other national and provincial sport and tourism industry partners. Sport tourism is the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry with approximately $2.4 billion in annual spending.

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quote:The event contributed approximately $114 million to the GDP and generated an estimated $259.02 million in economic activity throughout the four host provinces. The combined total of the visitor expenditures, operational expenditures, and capital construction costs of the event totaled just over $108 million. These expenditures supported over $74 million in wages and salaries and approximately 1,700 jobs. The initial expenditure generated over $8.5 million in direct tax revenue, and when accounting for the re-spending of the initial expenditure through the economy (indirect and induced impacts), resulted in the event supporting more than $43 million in taxes at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.

The competition featured more than 750 athletes, coaches and officials and an additional 68,770 out-of-town spectators.

That's good news on the non-soccer economic front...

[Guest Jeffery S.]

So was I still a s-hit for brains for even mentioning the subject?

If that is the impact, or even close to it, then as I said, our public institutions should cover the shortfall so that the grassroots soccer community does not have to pay for it in the mid term.

[vpsoccer]

quote:Originally posted by Jeffrey S.

So was I still a s-hit for brains for even mentioning the subject?

If that is the impact, or even close to it, then as I said, our public institutions should cover the shortfall so that the grassroots soccer community does not have to pay for it in the mid term.

It seems awfully high, but if you count in construction costs it might be. I don't have time this week to dissect the report.

1. That is a large amount via multiplier effects (i.e. beyond the direct impact) that I would certainly be reluctant to claim unless I had solid backing for it. Possible here given that construction and tourism do have high local and wage contents.

2. They use a proprietary model and as far as I can see in a very fast skim of their paper they do not say what they added to what or multiplied together to get the totals. As an input output model it is a bit more sophisticated than that, but conceptually they don't show that. With such a tool they ought to at least give the bona fides of the firm or whomever that built or a least reviewed and verified the model for them. Too much can be hidden inside a black box of this sort. This is not saying that it is bad, just professional skepticism over anything that is not transparent.

3. This appears to be a gross rather than a net analysis, and so the total they report is not the *net benefit* or the actual amount by which we are better off than we would otherwise have been.

I would like to hear some open discussion from the folks at this sport tourism association.

[Free kick]

quote:Originally posted by Jeffrey S.

So was I still a s-hit for brains for even mentioning the subject?

If that is the impact, or even close to it, then as I said, our public institutions should cover the shortfall so that the grassroots soccer community does not have to pay for it in the mid term.

well you have to consider the source when you look at the detractors. These numbers are not surprising to me. But why should our tax dollars cover this when there are benefactor in Switzerland who are more than willing to do so.

Getting back to the shortfall for a moment. One thing that was not mentioned in the discussion, was the revenue side of things. In retrospect, the prices we paid for tickets in toronto was very much in line with what we were accustomed to paying at fifa or concacaf events. Having attended GC matches in Miami and and Boston as well as WCQ in varsity( in Nov 2000) and Edm in the last round, I noticed that ticket prices for the U20 in TO were very much in line with the other events I mentioned. Namely, approximately 42$ a ticket or 200-250$ per package. But that was nowhere near the case at other venues for the U20. Likely, the demand was not as strong at some venues so ticket prices were adjusted accordingly with the thinking that TO surplus would subsidize the shorfalls at other venues.

Problem IMO was that some of facilities were just too big ( ie.: too much capacity), so you couldn't stimulate demand and hence you ended selling at a price that wouldn't cover LOC costs at those venues. or in the case of Burnaby, too small. if at 40$ per ticket in TO you bring in 800K to 1 mil in revenues, how much would you have to charge in Burnaby to bring in the same revenue when you have a facility of 6-8K. You would have to charge an ave ticket price of 100$. That price is not realistic considering that there would be no canada games played there. Similarly, at average price of 5-10$ per ticket in Edm you wouldn't get TO ticket revenues even if you sold out the joint. The costs, you would think, would be very close amongst the six venues.

Bottom line, aside from the unexpect cost of the turf in Mtl, I didn't see ( from what we know anyways) anything from the cost side that was out of the ordinary. But on revenue side you would have needed 5 more venues the size BMO field to generate a surlus.

[Canuck Oranje]

I view all economic impact assessments with skepticism. It is probably the most often misused form of economic analysis.

Still, the CSA should not have lost money on the tournament. It makes me wonder how FIFA did and who negotiated the partnership on behalf of the CSA.