Connecting world cities through sports events: Insights from international sports tours

Abstract

This paper tried to advance the theory of world city networks (WCNs) by uncovering the distinct spatial patterns and network structures of WCNs based on three common types of international sports tours (ISTs), namely the Tours of Tennis, Athletics and Marathon. We identify the distinct spatial trend of the “universalization of particularism.” The spatial features range from regional/domestic for ISTs in which everyone can participate, to global Northern for highly professional ISTs, and global for ISTs in which athletes represent their countries. The spatial pattern indicates that particularism takes place at the regional/global scale due to sports diversity. Also, our exploration reveals a unique city network composed of three subnetworks with both stable and unstable structures because of the domination of multiple actors. The pluralized spatial pattern and complicated network structure expand the research field of WCNs and provide a multiscale perspective for global-local interaction studies in the sports context.

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