Large-Scale Marathon Competition Boosts Urban Economic Development

The promulgation of the "Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Accelerating the Development of the Sports Industry" and the "Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Development of the Sports and Leisure Industry" provided new opportunities for the development of the sports industry.With the deepening of the impact of the large-scale sports events such as the Olympic Games and the National Games on the economics of the host city,the holding of sports events has become an important driving force for the rapid development of the city.For marathon events,which are an important part of sports events,they are increasingly valued by countries,organizers and researchers.Since 2000,more and more cities have realized the importance of holding marathon events to enhance the city's popularity and the shaping of the city's image and economic development.They have followed suit and the number of cities holding marathons has increased.The scale of the marathon is even more than 1,102.Based on the existing literature research,most of the qualitative analysis of the economic impact of the marathon event,due to the limitations of the research methods,the existing literature on the impact of the economic impact of the marathon is still controversial,not convincing.Then,whether the marathon event will have a positive impact on the economic development of the city remains to be verified.Based on the development status of China's marathon and the analysis of its economic impact mechanism,the double difference method is used to confirm the positive impact of the marathon on the urban economy from both theoretical and empirical aspects.This paper selects the panel data of 65 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2016,and uses the double difference method to carry out the overall empirical and sub-regional demonstration of the role of marathon in promoting economic growth,and adopts the method of counter factual test to stabilize the results.The empirica results show that:First,the city uses marathon events to attract more and more runners to participate in the integration of local urban characteristics,which has promoted the development of related industries such as urban tourism,thus promoting the development of urban economy.This conclusion is still valid after the robustness analysis.Second,the intrinsic driving force of the marathon event on the urban economy and its own development potential are increasing with the improvement of the city level.Third,the influence of marathon events on the development of the city,s economic is lagging behind.The marathon has promoted the development and level of service industries such as tourism,which can continue to be demonstrated after the game to promote economic development.