Short term and long term motives for the internationalization of marathon events

Abstract

The current study aims to answer the question of how the motives for internationalization of leisure sports companies can be understood through the example of international running events. We present the phenomenon of globalisation and internationalisation as a context of leisure sports, linking the conceptual frameworks of leisure sports and international business (IB). The paper highlights the characteristics of leisure sports companies in the process of internationalization. More specifically, we examined the global business trends of marathons, with particular attention of event organizers in the Central-Eastern European (CEE) region in our preparatory study. Data about experiences, entry fee, international communication and sponsorship were collected from the eight most significant CEE marathons and two semi-structured interviews were done with event organizers. Our main findings reveal that market seeking and strategic asset seeking motives are dominant in the case of CEE marathon organizers with a notable distinction between short term and long term perspectives.

Keywords

• internationalization
• marathon
• Central-Eastern Europe
• leisure sports services
• motives for internationalisation

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