<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The present article examines the IAAF World Championships as a commercialized mega-sporting event and an expression of the contemporary experience industry. The focus of the empirical analysis is on the national and international press coverage of the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, 2005. Eleven Finnish and six foreign newspapers were analysed. Finnish pre-Championship publicity saw the games mostly as a tool for achieving international media attention and economic profit. The coverage of the international press was strikingly similar. The newspapers focussed mainly on the sporting events and their perspective was strongly national – perfectly in line with traditional sports journalism. This finding challenges the belief expressed in Finnish newspapers and by proponents of the <italic>attention economy</italic> that mega-events are powerful tools for urban marketing.</p></abstract>

The present article examines the IAAF World Championships as a commercialized mega-sporting event and an expression of the contemporary experience industry. The focus of the empirical analysis is on the national and international press coverage of the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, 2005. Eleven Finnish and six foreign newspapers were analysed. Finnish pre-Championship publicity saw the games mostly as a tool for achieving international media attention and economic profit. The coverage of the international press was strikingly similar. The newspapers focussed mainly on the sporting events and their perspective was strongly national – perfectly in line with traditional sports journalism. This finding challenges the belief expressed in Finnish newspapers and by proponents of the attention economy that mega-events are powerful tools for urban marketing.

Mega-Sporting Events and the Media in Attention Economies

D.Soc.Sc., Senior Lecturer, Film and Television Studies, Arcada University of Applied Sciences,

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

National and International Press Coverage of the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki 2005

The present article examines the IAAF World Championships as a commercialized mega-sporting event and an expression of the contemporary experience industry....

Mega-Sporting Events and the Media in Attention Economies

Published Online: Feb 07, 2017

Page range: 125 - 140

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0155

Keywords
mega-event, sports journalism, IAAF, attention economy, urban marketing, identity

© 2009 Mats Nylund, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mega-Sporting Events and the Media in Attention Economies

Published Online: Feb 07, 2017

Page range: 125 - 140

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0155

Keywordsmega-event, sports journalism, IAAF, attention economy, urban marketing, identity

© 2009 Mats Nylund, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
mega-event, sports journalism, IAAF, attention economy, urban marketing, identity