Around the Rings, TSE Unveil Complete Sports Cities Index

(ATR) Hosts of recent Olympics and FIFA World Cups dominate the top 10 of the inaugural Sports Cities Index, presented by Around the Rings and TSE Consulting.

As revealed Thursday exclusively to ATR subscribers, London leads the way in the first installment of what will become a biannual ranking built around both public perception and expert insight.

Sydney and Vancouver round out the podium, so to speak, with 2006 Commonwealth Games host Melbourne and 2010 Summer Youth Olympic Games host Singapore sneaking in the top five.

"It’s clear that the Olympic Games play a large part in building the perception of a city with the top cities being mostly Olympic hosts," TSE managing director Lars Haue-Pedersen tells ATR.

The full 50 cities were unveiled for the first time Friday by TSE at the City Events Conference in Lausanne.

Click here to view the complete Index.

Beijing sits sixth in the Index, the first of four Chinese cities to make the cut.

South Africa 2010 cities Cape Town (seventh) and Johannesburg (10th) bookend Barcelona (eighth) and the first of three candidates for the 2020 Olympics: Tokyo (ninth).

Bid rivals Istanbul and Madrid come in at 20th and 32nd, respectively.

Other noticeable finishes include Olympic capital Lausanne at 17th, failed 2020 candidate Doha at 18th as well as future Olympics hosts Rio de Janeiro at 19th, Sochi at 39th and PyeongChang at 42nd.

By the Numbers

As a whole, the Index includes:

six of the last eight Summer Olympics hosts (Los Angeles, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Beijing, London) as well as the next one (Rio de Janeiro) and all possible 2020 cities (Tokyo, Madrid, Istanbul) the last two Winter Olympics hosts (Torino, Vancouver) as well as the next two (Sochi, PyeongChang) the last two World Athletics Championships hosts (Berlin, Daegu) as well as the next three (Moscow, Beijing, London) two host cities of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (Cape Town, Johannesburg) two host cities of Euro 2012 (Warsaw, Kiev) the first Summer Youth Olympic Games host (Singapore) and the next one (Nanjing) six of the last nine Commonwealth Games hosts (Edmonton, Brisbane, Auckland, Manchester, Melbourne, Delhi) as well as the next one (Glasgow) the last two Asian Games hosts (Doha, Guangzhou) as well as the next one (Incheon) the last two Pan American Games hosts (Rio de Janeiro, Guadalajara) as well as the next one (Toronto) the last All-Africa Games host (Maputo) as well as the next one (Brazzaville) Other pasts Olympics host cities (Paris, Montreal, Stockholm, Amsterdam)Other events that won their hosts spots on the Index include the 2009 IOC Session (Copenhagen), the 2009 Rugby Sevens World Cup (Dubai) and the 2011 World Aquatics Championships (Shanghai).

U.S. professional sports powerhouses (New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, Dallas) also performed well, placing 16th, 30th, 33rd, 46th and 47th.

Notably, the 48th, 49th and 50th cities won’t stay on the Index for long.

Following each installment, the final three finishers are removed, and three new cities that received the most number of votes to the question "Are there other cities that you would like to include in this list of top cities?" are included.

In this case, Nanjing; Brazzaville, Congo and Maputo, Mozambique will be replaced by Munich, Helsinki and Birmingham, England when the second Sports Cities Index is unveiled at SportAccord 2013 in St. Petersburg.

"The effect of the Youth Olympic Games is yet to be seen," says Pedersen, "as Nanjing sits at the bottom of the list. It will be interesting to see how their position changes following the Youth Olympic Games in 2014."

Nitty Gritty

The rankings are built around a group of 50 cities selected through criteria such as staging recent and upcoming Olympics or other major multi-sport Games, hosting professional sports teams as well as organizing major championships or world-class events such as tennis Grand Slams and Formula 1 races.

An online survey conducted from Oct. 23 to Nov. 11 asked respondents four brief questions on those themes and then gave them the opportunity to suggest other cities for inclusion in future editions.

A group of 100 "TSE Survey Experts" drawn from international federations, National Olympic Committees, sports media and other influencers also responded to the survey.

Answers from these experts were combined with those from the general public to produce the final Sports Cities Index.

"The Index stemmed from a request from cities to have a base upon which they can both track any movement in their perception as well as compare themselves to other international cities," TSE director Caroline Andersen tells ATR.

"The Sports Cities Index provides exactly this."

Written by Matthew Grayson

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