SynthesisFrontiers in sports and active living2026
Sports events as economic and political instruments: unpacking the dynamics of image creation through sport.
Synthesis in Frontiers in sports and active living, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Introduction: This article examines how sports events are conceptualized in scholarly literature as economic and political instruments of image creation, soft power projection, sport governance, reputational positioning, and sportswashing. Methods: The study adopts a systematic mapping/scoping review design using bibliometric performance analysis and science mapping to examine publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science between 2015 and 2025. Results: The analysis identifies key thematic clusters, international collaboration patterns, and relationships between sport events, infrastructure development, governance, and political communication. The findings show that sportswashing appears as an embedded concept within a wider research landscape rather than as an isolated research stream. Contemporary image-building through sport is increasingly materialized through stadium construction, infrastructure megaprojects, and urban redevelopment. Discussion: Hosting global sporting events can enhance economic visibility and soft power, but it also raises ethical concerns, intensifies spatial inequalities, and produces uneven developmental outcomes. Identified research gaps include limited quantitative evidence on long-term economic effects, insufficient assessment of governance transparency, and underdeveloped comparative analysis of infrastructural legacies as political tools.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.