2002 World Cup Games Ticket example essay topic

It is hard to deny that sports and economy are correlated whether is for the mutual benefit or detriment. Almost every country has its most popular and favourite sport. Baseball is for Japan, Cuba, and Korea. Football is for U.S., while Hockey is for Canada. Rugby is for Australia, and New Zealand. However, Soccer is for continent of Europe, Africa, Latin America, and recently, even China.

It is undeniable that Soccer is arguably the most widespread sport all over the world, and beside those above-mentioned countries, there are still many more countries that Soccer is their most favourite sport. And, simultaneously, FIFA World CupTM, not inferior to the Olympics, is the biggest sport event in the global village that we are living in. Matter of fact, it is evident that the word 'World Cup' evokes Soccer to most people, while there is a World Cup for swimming, gymnastics, tennis, hockey, rugby, and etcetera. And naturally, FIFA World CupTM is an event that really affects one country's economy, especially the host country that event is held in. 2002 Korea / Japan FIFA World CupTM was the first World Cup that was held in Asia and first co-hosted World Cup ever in history. Of course, soccer fans and economists focused on how these countries will capably carry this enormous event.

And consequently, they were quite amazed with the results. World Cup does give economical effects to its host country. Korea, one half of co-host of 2002 World CupTM, was overall benefited from special effects of the World Cup. Firstly, the World Cup effects affected Korean Stock market.

This graph shows that how Korea performed well in the pre-World Cup season, comparing to the world's stock market, and co-host of 2002 World Cup, Japan. Korea World Cup Organizing Committee (KOWOC) has forecast that by just hosting the World Cup tournament, it will result in a 8.8 trillion Korean Won windfall and create 350,000 jobs. Although this forecast didn't really come through right after the World Cup, this kind of expectation did stimulate the Korean economy, which is also evident in the graph above. Similarly, two major Korean airline companies: Korean Airline, and Asiana Airline both faced some changes with the World Cup effects. Red line represents Korean Airline (KAL)'s performance throughout last 2 years, and blue line is for Asiana Airline.

As it is appeared, in the pre-World Cup period, which is before June 2002, both airline companies were steadily on the upswing. It is because people expected that there would be a higher demand in plane tickets from foreigners who are coming to see the World Cup games and support their country's national team. However, the World Cup ticket sales to people in overseas were way lower than KOWOC (Korea World Cup Organising Committee) expected. Byrom Inc., an UK-based, FIFA's exclusive ticketing agency charged with the printing and supplying of tickets for the World Cup, was responsible with distributing 2002 World Cup games' ticket, and reportedly, with less than a week to go before the start of the World Cup officials from the game's governing body, FIFA, have admitted they are a month behind in the delivery of tickets for the competition.

Byrom has been at the center of criticism over several ticketing problems including duplication of tickets in Japan, and the delays in printing and the dispatch hundreds of thousands of tickets to Japan and South Korea that left some overseas fans without tickets. For example, before three months of World Cup games, the percentage of ticket sold was 73%; before a month of tournament, the percentage was 75.6%. Excluding 1998 France World Cup, every World Cup held during last 24 years had reached over 80% of ticket sales in pre-World Cup season. The reason that Korea and Japan suffered with this ticketing confusion was that Byrom Inc., a company running with 23 people, was responsible with printing and supplying 1,400,000 tickets worldwide, and since 2002 FIFA World CupTM was the first co-hosted World Cup ever, there were several conflicts with distributing the tickets. Consequently, since there was a large number of overseas fans left without the tickets, airline companies in Korea didn't profited as much as the amount that they forecast.

So, as the graph above shows, in post-World Cup period, Airline companies's tock performance was, and is in depression. Co-host country Japan also faced a similar result with Korea. See the graph below: a comparison between KOEPI and NIKKEI. These results were very disappointing to Korea and Japan, since France, host of 1998 FIFA World Cup scored 108% stock market's growth after the tournament, U.S. (1994) with 22.74%, and Italy (1990) with 22.53% of positive growth in stock market. Secondly, GDP change was another consequence followed with World Cup effects.

For 2002, KOWOC and Korea federal government forecasts real GDP to rise by 4%, and private economists think growth could top 5%, as they expect that 400,000 soccer fans from overseas would visit Korea. However, since the number of foreigners visited Korea was disappointingly lower, forecast seemed to be remained unrealized. Also, Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the world's largest real estate services and investment management firm, suspected that these forecasts are likely to prove too optimistic: "It is important to try to separate the World Cup effect from normal cyclical economic movements and to take account of the "crowding out" effect on spending in other parts of the economy. We suspect that the World Cup will probably have little or no statistically significant impact on the host nations' GDP". Ben Sanderson, Associate Director, Asia Pacific Research, based in Tokyo and the lead author of the report, said.

In contrary, the result was: Korea's real gross domestic product grew by 1.6% in the fourth quarter of 2002, and it was up 3.7% from its year-ago levels, with the increase led by domestic demand. This was possible because of Korean people were fueled with South Korean national soccer team's unexpected extraordinary performance, which they made it up to 4th place of the tournament. These GDP change is not unprecedented. Looking back how World Cup boosted its host country for last 50 years by changing the GDP, proves that statement. According to the graph below, 7 of the 10 World Cups analyzed, GDP growth increased in the years following the tournament. GDP GROWTH Year Host Pre- Post- 1954 Switzerland 4.0 5.5 1958 Sweden 1.9 4.0 1962 Chile 3.2 1.8 1966 England 1.4 3.0 1970 Mexico 2.9 5.2 1974 Germany 9.5 4.7 1978 Argentina 0.0 5.6 1982 Spain -0.6 0.5 1986 Mexico -2.2 0.6 1990 Italy 2.4 0.9 Mean 2.2 3.2 Median 2.1 3.5 Thirdly, when a country hosts the World Cup, there is typically a boom in new construction in preparation for the games.

Korea constructed 10 brand-new stadiums for 2002 World Cup, and the total amount of money that was spent for building those stadiums was 1950 billion Korean Won, which is approximately equivalent to 2.3 billion Canadian Dollars. It was reported that Most of those 10 cities got a budget deficit throughout the period of World Cup. For example, Seoqwipo city, except the rental fee and utility fee of the stadium for World Cup games, didn't get any profit. So, inevitably, municipal government decided to assist the stadium financially with distributing $1.8 million CAD for personnel expenses, and maintenance expenses. Another example is Seoul city, the capital of Korea. Their income with the stadium throughout the World Cup period was $15.2 million CAD, while; the outgo was $27.5 million CAD.

It's a deficit of $12.3 million CAD. Recently, these cities are trying to recover from these wounds they got throughout the World Cup period with renovating their stadium as a multifunctional stadium foreseeing the business after the World Cup. Among those 10 stadiums, statistically, the most beautiful stadium with least expense was Seogwipo Stadium (see Appendix), in Cheju Island. It cost $146 million CAD to construct this beautiful stadium, but Seogwipo city, which is considered as a non-wealthy city in South Korea, initially suffered with the fact that they owed $40.9 million CAD to the central bank, with annual interest rate of 6.9%, plus, maintenance expenses of the stadium, which annually costs $1.9 to $2.1 million CAD. However, an American company called GTE C signed a contract with Seoqwipo city to build an IMAX theatre and mini amusement park beside the stadium and pay the city annually $2.2 million CAD. While, another example is the Sang Am Stadium (see Appendix) in Seoul.

This stadium is literally the largest Soccer Stadium in the continent of Asia. Working expenses for this stadium was $241 million CAD, and since Seoul municipal government was capably wealthy to afford this amount of money, there was no debt, such Seogwipo city had, and still has. Rather, Seoul city had planned to use this stadium after the World Cup games as a home stadium of professional soccer club which is planned to be launched in 2 years and join the 20-year-old K-League, the major league of Soccer in Korea. Besides that, they are building an Indoor swimming pool, golf club, racquetball courts, mall, and a record store.

It is expected to pay $4.9 million CAD for the annual expense of maintenance, while; it will create revenue of $7.6 million CAD annually, only counting the auxiliary facilities of the stadium. These post-World Cup plans give some sunshine on regional economy in Korea, which was darkened with disappointing results right after the World Cup games. Overall, World Cup did stimulate the Korean economy despite of stock market's poor performance. According all of those numbers mentioned above, it doesn't seem that World Cup did stimulate the economy of Korea, one half of co-host of 2002 World Cup TM, but there were many immeasurable stimuli.

Biggest one was that Korean national team made it up to 4th place, beating some likely winners, favourite teams in world such as Italy, Portugal, and Spain. It encouraged Korean people to have a confidence that they can be successful, and capable to compete with world's top countries. In 1988 Seoul Olympics, which also Korea finished in 4th place, gave enormous impact on economy and society of Korea until they faced economic crisis in 1997. Now, economists hope that World Cup would do that 88' Olympics did to Korea.

And actually, we are seeing that people are recovering from their depressed emotions caused by a big recession period, which in arguably came from the World Cup. More people in overseas now know about Republic of Korea. Not as a country of Korean War, as one half of divided land Korea, as a country with violent-minded government, but as a soccer nation, which co-hosted with one of the wealthiest nation in the world Japan, and demonstrated its successful organising of that biggest sport event of the world. Statistically, over 43% of people in overseas responded that they got to know about more of Korea after the 2002 World Cup TM, and now, they are focusing on Korea.

Korea should use those immeasurable World Cup effects as a catalyst of its economy.