A study on the effective use of 2002 fifa world cup stadiums: a case study on kobe wing stadium

The 2002 FIFA World Cup was a big sports event and a huge amount of investment was poured into it. As a result, respective host local governments have been afflicted with an unexpected financial burden since the end of the event With this financial difficulty among them, having to compensate for the deficit from running the stadiums and the repayment of the construction loans should make the financial state of the local governments more fragile. Therefore, hard efforts are required on the part of the running bodies to reduce the deficit, if not surplus. What is required now is a variety of strategies and attractive marketing for new programs, which should enable them to use the World Cup related facilities effectively. The purpose of this study is to examine Kobe Wing Stadium, a surplus-running World Cup stadium, in terms of how it is run and managed as well as its current businesses, thereby examining how the World Cup stadiums can use their facilities effectively as well as possible problems arising.
Kobe Wing Stadium was chosen from the ten stadiums, where the World Cup games were held, as it was run in the black until June, 2003. Interviews with the people in charge of its management have been conducted, while content analysis was applied to the materials of newspapers and related publications.
Major findings obtained are as follows:
1) Kobe Wing Stadium is run by Kobe city and a private sector under the public-private sector method. Kobe city bore the construction cost from the initial stage and took charge of planning the project, designing and construction of the stadium. Kobe Wing Stadium corporation is in charge of running the stadium so that its loss and profit belong to the
company itself.
2) The stadium hosts 100 events annually: 20 days professional soccer games of Vissel Kobe, the regional soccer team; 40 days of amateur soccer, rugby and American football games and 20 days of cultural events such as exhibitions.
3) The primary sources of revenue are rental fees from events, underground parking fees, income from the restaurant and the sports club, admission fees from games and the income from related goods sales.
4) Event volunteers are registered and contribute to save management cost.