China v Russia: Which Is the Leading Sports Nation?

The new edition of Sportcal Magazine is available now online free of charge, with hard copies also to be distributed at a range of international sports conferences and events, including the SportAccord convention in St Petersburg in May.

With SportAccord in mind, this edition opens with a special feature on the shifting landscape of Sportcal’s Global Sports Nations Index, with the latest research showing Russia challenging China, United Kingdom and Canada for the Leading Global Sports Nation for 2013.

First published in November last year, the Global Sports Index looks at how successful nations and cities have been at attracting major sporting events, with each event given a weighting based on a set of criteria which has been determined by over 200 sports industry experts.

Sportcal will be showcasing the latest edition of the Index at SportAccord.

Meanwhile, SportAccord will also be the setting for the announcement by the International Olympic Committee’s executive board of a shortlist of up to three sports that it will recommend to go forward to the IOC Session in September for a decision on which sport will replace wrestling on the 2020 Olympic programme. In the Federations feature, we profile all eight sports in the running.

Another bidding race, between the three cities vying to stage the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, is also featured, ahead of a vote by the IOC on July 4 to decide the host city. Our Events feature profiles the three contenders: Buenos Aires, Glasgow and Medellin.

Returning to SportAccord’s host country this year, the Media feature takes Sportcal’s recently-launched Media Landscape template and expands it to examine the top sports properties in Russia and who hold the rights for them.

The Sponsorship feature takes an in-depth look at FIBA’s rebranded basketball World Cup competition, asking the question: in the face of the continuing financial downturn, how have organisers nearly sold out their sponsorship inventory for a competition held in Spain, with 18 months to go until it takes place?

The Academic section features the latest work of the CIES Football Observatory in examining patterns of employment of expatriate soccer players in the top European leagues, while the Sports Market Interview is with Mika Sulin, the new general secretary of the Finnish Olympic Committee.

Issue 29 is available free of charge online via the Sportcal website and is promoted to over 20,000 senior sports industry executives who each receive a personalised email directing them to the issue. It is also distributed directly to all IOC members, international sports federation senior executives, NOCs, national sports governing bodies and Sportcal subscribers.

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