Sustainable Financing of Elite Athlete Development: An Empirical Analysis of Winter Sports in Austria

Pamela Wicker and Bernd Frick
Additional contact information
Pamela Wicker: Department of Sports Science, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
Bernd Frick: Department of Management, Paderborn University, Warburger Str. 100, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 22, 1-16

Abstract: This study examines the value of professional winter sports to the Austrian resident population in the context of three major sporting events (the 2017 World Championships in Alpine Skiing, the 2018 Winter Olympics, and the 2019 World Championships in Nordic Skiing). In nationwide population surveys ( n = 2289), the contingent valuation method was employed, and the respondents were presented with two scenarios asking for their willingness-to-pay for live broadcasts and long-term athlete development. The aggregate willingness-to-pay amounted to €42 million (for live broadcasts) and about €800 million (for athlete development). However, only about 20% of the residents expressed a positive willingness-to-pay. The respondents’ willingness-to-pay is not only determined by well-studied factors like consumption capital, intangible factors, and socio-demographics, but also by life satisfaction. The willingness-to-pay for live broadcasts is comparably higher for alpine skiing, while the willingness-to-pay for athlete development is higher for Olympic winter sports athletes. The findings have implications for sport policy and sport finance, highlighting the challenge of turning public sport consumption into a willingness to contribute financially to sustainable athlete development.

Keywords: contingent valuation method; elite sport; Olympic Games; skiing; willingness-to-pay; World Championships (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9664/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9664/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:22:p:9664-:d:447837

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().