06 October 2021

Overseen by ASOIF’s Commercial Advisory Group (CAG), the report consolidates relevant and easily available data in a clear way to ensure consistency of data gathering and reporting between events, with the intent of helping the industry deliver, and demonstrate, true value to investors and policy makers. It provides event professionals with a practical tool throughout the lifecycle of events, including a defined set of 30 “input”, 50 “output” and 10 “outcome” Key Performance Indicators from which rights owners and partners can gather data relevant to their own event objectives.

ASOIF President Francesco Ricci Bitti said about the report: “Through previous projects in this field we knew about the lack of systematic approach to IFs’ sporting event data collection and analysis. However, consistent data reporting is essential to build trust amongst all stakeholders seeking to benefit from the staging of sporting events, whether that be for tangible economic gain or less tangible benefits to society. At a time when communities start to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, it has never been more important for events to show their value.”

The indicators and guidance align with international best practice and intergovernmental work linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They support other global initiatives such as the OECD Recommendation on Global Events and Local Development, that calls for “rigorous criteria that enables comparison across different types of events in different geographic areas which should be set to monitor public expenditure and impact at all levels”.

As more organisations use these common indicators, it will become easier to learn from past experience, become more cost effective to gather data and improve how events deliver, and report on, a return on investment for their investing partners.

The report is authored by Iain Edmondson, Founder and Managing Director at Legacy Delivery, commissioned by ASOIF to aggregate the perspectives of key players in the sporting event evaluation industry. For this purpose, three workshops were conducted between July and October 2020, with more than 40 participants from IFs, host cities, commercial entities and academic experts.

In May 2021, in a joint commitment to implementing the common indicators amongst both event host organisations and international rights owners, ASOIF signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Association of Event Hosts (IAEH) to endorse the content of this report and support their members in implementing it.

The Chair of IAEH, Susan Sawbridge, said about the new report: A common view of event impact measurement standards is something event hosts have been eager to have in place for a long time. The partnership between the IAEH and ASOIF to build this shared language has reached a significant milestone this week, with the publication of the report. We expect this work will help hosts and rights holders to better understand the social and economic benefits events generate for many years to come.

As a next step, ASOIF and IAEH will collaborate to obtain additional support from third-party organisations to enhance the tools available for sporting event impact evaluation.