ABSTRACT
Some sport competitions go beyond physical contests of local interest and become global exhibitions that demand complex preparation and investments, generating significant impact for hosting cities and countries. In these cases, events reach stages on some criteria – most notably the international interest, number of visitors, media coverage and costs – to be classified as ‘mega’ events (Roche, 2000). More recently, the even greater magnitude of the Summer Olympic Games compared to other mega-events such as the FIFA World Cup, the Expos and the Winter Olympic Games motivated the creation of the term ‘giga-event’ to a more precise classification (Muller, 2015). Considering these variables, staging mega/giga-events does not rely on sporting purposes, but mostly on the possibility of perceived transformation of cities that last well beyond the event (Preuss, 2015).
