Does hosting a sports team boost the visibility of a city among tourists? I test this proposition by looking at the effect of playing soccer’s UEFA Champions' League on air travel. I compare routes across cities that had their teams randomly drawn into the same group in the first phase of the competition to routes across cities hosting teams randomly allocated to different groups. The average effect of being drawn into the same group is between 5% and 8% more arrivals for the 3 months following the group stage, a period which coincides with a break in the competition. The first appearance of a team in the competition has a larger impact on air travel, providing suggesting evidence of diminishing returns of exposure.

接待运动队是否会增加游客对城市的了解？我通过研究踢足球的欧洲冠军联赛对航空旅行的影响来检验这一主张。我将竞赛第一阶段中将其团队随机分为同一组的城市之间的路线与随机分配给不同组的城市之间的路线进行了比较。进入小组赛后的三个月内，进入同一小组的平均影响是到达的人群增加5％至8％，这个时间段与比赛的休息时间相吻合。团队在比赛中的首次出现对航空旅行有较大影响，这提供了暴露的收益递减的暗示证据。