ABSTRACT

Research Question: The sources of countries’ success in sporting events have been investigated for a long time. In addition to socioeconomic factors, sport specialization and competitive balance have been identified as impacting medal yields. Nevertheless, there remains little understanding of how countries become successful in sports they did not succeed in before.

Research methods: We argue that the concept of related diversification, which is particularly popular in Evolutionary Economic Geography, can also be applied to sports and can help to explain in which sports countries become successful. We substantiate our argument with an empirical study of the evolution of national medal portfolios covering 61 sports at the Olympic Summer Games between 1896 and 2016 using this framework.

Results and findings: Our empirical findings quantify the relatedness of sports emerging from physical, financial, cultural, and organizational similarities. We confirm that diversification processes based on countries’ existing strengths in particular sports are a (small) driving force behind the Olympic success of countries and help to explain their success in sports in which they have been previously unsuccessful.

Implications: Our results highlight how examining hidden opportunities for diversification by incorporating sport-relatedness in a competitive positioning strategy can be informative for sport policy makers.

摘要

研究问题：长期以来，人们对各国体育赛事成功的来源进行了调查。除了社会经济因素外，体育专业化和竞争平衡已被确定为影响奖牌产量。然而，对于各国如何在他们以前没有成功的体育运动中取得成功，人们仍然知之甚少。

研究方法：我们认为，在演化经济地理学中特别流行的相关多元化概念也可以应用于体育，并有助于解释哪些体育国家在哪些方面取得了成功。我们使用该框架对涵盖 1896 年至 2016 年夏季奥运会 61 项运动的国家奖牌组合演变的实证研究来证实我们的论点。

结果和调查结果：我们的实证调查结果量化了体育运动的相关性，这些相关性来自身体、财务、文化和组织的相似性。我们确认，基于国家在特定体育领域现有优势的多样化进程是各国奥运成功背后的（小）驱动力，并有助于解释它们在以前不成功的体育项目中的成功。

启示：我们的研究结果强调了如何通过将体育相关性纳入竞争定位战略来检查隐藏的多元化机会可以为体育政策制定者提供信息。