Eight major events and one voice to project Barcelona's sporting strength

A few days before Barcelona dresses in yellow to become the starting point of the Tour de France, the city prepares to once again place itself at the center of the international sports scene. The Grand Départ will mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in an event that, according to the Sports Councilor of the Barcelona City Council, David Escudé, will be "possibly Barcelona's great sporting milestone since the 92 Olympic Games", both for its citizen impact and for the international projection it will generate.

But the Grand Départ is just one chapter in a much longer story: that of a city that has built, for decades, a calendar of top-level sporting events. The Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell - Conde de Godó Trophy, the Barcelona Marathon, the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya or the Formula 1 Grand Prix are just some examples of a sports ecosystem that projects the Catalan capital to the world.

Now, for the first time, eight of these competitions have decided to join forces under one voice: Barcelona International Sports Events (BISE). A new platform created with the aim that these major events work together, share knowledge and strengthen the international projection of Barcelona and Catalonia.

Part of this platform are the CSIO Barcelona, the Formula 1 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, the MotoGP Catalunya Grand Prix, the Barcelona Marathon, the Barcelona Half Marathon, the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell - Conde de Godó Trophy, the Conde de Godó Sailing Trophy and the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. Eight different disciplines —from motor sports to athletics, sailing, tennis, cycling or equestrian sports— that, however, share challenges and a common will: to reinforce the intangible legacy of these events so that their impact goes beyond the days of competition.

"The will is to unite these events, work together and face the common challenges we have ahead," explained Santiago Mercè, president of CSIO Barcelona and first president of BISE for the next two years, during the presentation of the platform. Sponsorships, international projection, sustainability or relationship with administrations are some of these shared challenges that will mark the agenda of the new platform.

But BISE's objective goes beyond coordination and shared knowledge among these events. The platform wants to work on a joint vision for the future, highlight the impact generated by these competitions, and strengthen their international projection. "BISE was born with the aim of making visible everything that these events generate, beyond the competition: the economic, social, and reputational impact, sharing best practices among organizers, and guaranteeing the future competitiveness of the territory," Mercè stated.

David Escudé: "Sports events project Barcelona as a sporting city, open and capable of organizing top-level international competitions"

An international projection that Barcelona and Catalonia have already built over the years, but which BISE now wants to reinforce by pooling the strength of these major events. "When we travel the world, we are proud of the image that Catalonia projects, and a large part of this recognition is the result of sports events with an enormous international dimension," affirmed César Thovar, territorial representative of the Department of Sports in Barcelona.

Events that, however, not only contribute to projecting the city and the territory outwards, but also generate pride and a sense of belonging among citizens. "These are events that help us feel proud to be Barcelonans and that project Barcelona as a sporting city, open and capable of organizing top-level international competitions," emphasized David Escudé, Sports Councilor of the Barcelona City Council.

The invisible value of major sporting events

Precisely because these events have an impact that goes far beyond the days of competition, one of BISE's great challenges will be to highlight everything they generate: from the economic return and the international projection of the city to the social and emotional legacy of sporting events that in Barcelona are experienced by land, sea, and air.

For years, the impact of major sporting events has been measured primarily through an economic lens: number of participants and spectators, hotel overnight stays, associated consumption, and direct return to the city. And the figures demonstrate the magnitude of these events: the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya generates around 500 million euros in economic impact; the Barcelona Marathon and Half Marathon jointly exceed 72 million euros; and the Conde de Godó Tennis Trophy estimates a return close to 50 million euros.

But sport goes beyond major events. The economic report on the sports industry in Catalonia, prepared by the Observatori de la Pime de Catalunya, confirms the growing weight of a sector that already exceeds 1,200 million euros in turnover. And, although football is not part of the BISE platform, data from the latest report by the Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona -published just a couple of hours after the presentation of the new platform- also highlight this dimension: the football ecosystem in the Barcelona area generates 1,521 million euros annually in wealth and supports nearly 28,000 jobs. Close to 73% of this expenditure, moreover, stays in the city.

However, figures alone do not fully illustrate the dimension of these events, which also have an impact on the city's projection, social legacy, or the ability to generate pride and identity. This is one of the issues that BISE wants to start addressing and, for this reason, the platform's presentation has also served to open a debate, with different specialists, on how to measure everything that cannot be calculated in millions of euros.

Cristian Llorens, director of the Zurich Marató de Barcelona and the Hyundai Mitja Marató de Barcelona by Brooks, pointed out that tools designed for other economic sectors are often applied to sport. "The emotional dimension also generates a return," he argued. Why does a runner from Berlin decide to travel to Barcelona to participate in a race? Or why do thousands of volunteers dedicate hours of their time to make a competition possible?

An emotional dimension difficult to calculate, as Pedro Castelló, Deloitte transactions partner, has remarked —since the great challenge is to quantify this intangible legacy that materializes in the form of reputation, civic pride, or social cohesion—, but also difficult to communicate. "Sports events are not communicating well enough how sport benefits as a whole: in terms of reputation, trade, tourism, healthy habits, or sustainability," said Carles Murillo, Professor of Applied Economics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), in a round table in which Enrique Zaragoza, country manager of Fairplaid, and Adela Pérez Chomón, Director of Sponsorships, Image and Events at Banco Sabadell, also participated.

This will be, precisely, one of the great challenges that this new platform will face: that major sporting events are not measured only by what happens during the competition, but also by their subsequent legacy.