Germany Hosts Most Sporting Events

While Salt Lake City gears up for the Winter Olympics and Sydney bathes in the glory of the "best Olympic Games ever", Germany enjoys a more mundane sort of sports prestige: It is the leading host for major sports events.

According to a recently published report by Sportcal.com, a sports-business web portal, Germany tops the list of countries for the most international sporting events (76) held in a country over the last 10 years. France (63) came in second, and was followed closely behind by Italy (60). The US (51) and Australia (42) ranked considerably lower in fourth and fifth place.

The London-based sports company surveyed calendars for 85 different types of sports over the past decade and tallied up the number of sporting events held in each country. Only international events whose hosting location was open to bidding were counted in the report. These events include, but are not limited to, Summer and Winter Olympics, World and European Cup Soccer championships.

Compared to the other countries listed in the survey, Germany hosted very few major world events which attracted significant media attention. There were no Olympic Games, no World Cups, no major Tennis championships, and no international Golf tournaments. And yet, Germany still outranked the better-known hosts.

Diversity

One of the main reasons for Germany's top-ranking in the list is its tendency to stage a wide variety of sports, some more popular and media-savvy than others.

Over the last ten years several smaller sporting events have been showcased in Germany. Figure skating, snowboarding championships and even world handball tournaments have taken place in various German cities. The 2001 European Baseball Championships, held in Bonn, might have been small with only 4,500 visitors, but were nonetheless significant in their own right, and contributed to the variety of sporting venues held in Germany.

In this regard Germany differs greatly from the United States and tenth-placed England which tend to focus primarily on home-grown varieties of sports and national sporting events.