Strategic analysis of medal markets at the Winter Olympics: introducing an index to analyse the market potential of sports disciplines

Despite the evidence of nations investing strategically into their elite sport systems to produceOlympic success, there is a lack of knowledge on how national-level decision-makers canemploy a strategy to analyse the competitive environment concerning sports contested in theOlympic Winter Games. In this paper, the concept of market potential analysis, which iscommonly applied in economics, is proposed as a method to enable these investment decisionsto be based on sound evidence. The markets for Olympic awards, i.e. medals (top 3 places) anddiplomas (i.e. top 8 places) are compared in alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country, speedskating, freestyle skiing, short track and snowboarding from 1992 to 2018. The most notablechanges are identified in cross country (2002), biathlon (2006), freestyle skiing (2014),snowboarding (2006 and 2014) and speed skating (2018). Drawing on strategic managementliterature analysing the changes in market potential in relation to the market-governingorganisations, the strategic evidence of these findings is highlighted by discussing the role ofthe International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the respective International Federations. Theseorganisations govern the competition in the Olympic awards’ markets by introducing newevents and altering qualification rules. With reference to principles of mainstream economics,decision-makers who understand the underpinning governing mechanisms of the competitionat the Olympic Games can exploit this intelligence strategically to develop a sustainablecompetitive advantage over their rivals.