Purport of survey
HIROSE Ichiro
Senior Fellow, RIETI (until October 31, 2004)
The World Cup football game has three dimensions: "game" (football), "business", and "festival". It is the second dimension of these - "business" - that is the focus of this survey.
Justifiably, any business entity is subject to evaluation with its performance being tested all the time.
In discussing the business dimension of the World Cup, we should distinguish between two different types of business entities and stakeholders, namely, the public and private sectors.
The leading players in the private sector included TV broadcasters, an advertising agency (Dentsu Inc.), official sponsors and so on. In addition, a number of companies and operators in the transportation, hotel (and other accommodation) businesses also played a role, although they were not official stakeholders (ticketing companies, which gained notoriety in the 2002 World Cup, were "official" sponsors of the event but not "public". Ticketing operations for the World Cup were fully undertaken by private businesses). All these entities must have internally evaluated the performance of their respective World Cup business and have been subjected to external evaluations. Furthermore, the results of such internal and external evaluations would be reflected on their earnings statements and reported to their shareholders, thereby, eventually receiving the ultimate external evaluation in the form of the market's verdict. Thus, these private-sector entities are not subject to this survey.
The focus of this survey is those in the public sector which are, unlike their private-sector counterparts, not subjected to external evaluations. More specifically, the survey homes in on the local governments that played a key role by hosting the World Cup, shedding light on their "business" performance and the ex post evaluation of their performance. In other words, the survey attempts to verify, "administration evaluation and accountability," concerning the hosting of the World Cup; a pertinent contemporary issue.
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Research Agenda
