Rasmus K. Storm

Danish Institute for Sports Studies & NTNU Business School

Sports scandals are often discussed in the media and research literature without any deeper reflection on their specificities or development. As the economic and political significance of sport seem to grow in correlation with the development of globalization and new social media, the call for a sociological understanding of the downsides of sport...

The commercial fitness sector in Denmark has boomed over the last decades. The number of for-profit fitness centres has risen from around 350 in the 2000s to more than 800 in 2018. This development indicates that many Danes are now customers of commercial sport for all fitness programmes. In response to this, the non-profit sector in Denmark has st...

The tangible effects of hosting major sporting events have been thoroughly examined in recent years. The consensus among scholars is that the effects on tourism, inbound foreign investments and gross domestic product (GDP) from hosting, for example, the Olympic Games or the football World Cup are absent. Further, only a few studies have been conduc...

Contemporary research into the impact of major sports events shows that the widely used (and popular) claim of economic benefits associated with hosting them is misleading or-at best-overrated. In this paper, we aim to measure whether other potential intangible effects can be found, specifically that of national pride. We expand on existing researc...

Over the years, international elite sport has developed into a 'sporting arms race' with the success of national elite sport systems becoming a symbol of regime superiority. This is the case not only in relation to sport specifically, but also in a broader sense. During the Cold War, the Eastern and Western blocs battled for success in various spor...

Denmark performed very well in the Olympic Games in 2021, with 11 medals in total. In 2022, the year after the Olympics, Danish athletes also won many medals and performed at the top level in international competitions. The triumph of Jonas Vingegaard in the Tour de France outshines everything else, but there were many other top performances. The b...

The last decade the IOC has struggled with recruiting cities to host the Olympics, a pattern for both the Summer and Winter Games. The main reason for this has been the many cases of significant cost overruns on previous games. This chapter first presents an overview of the IOC’s traditional business model to show why the economic burdens to host c...

This country-specific chapter seeks to explore football in Denmark. We start by examining the early years of football, starting from the 1870s. From there, we present decisive landmarks for the understanding of Danish football, leading up to insights into the current state of play. Overall, we conclude that Danish football is characterised by four...

Usually, claims about mass participation effects from event hosting are raised by politicians and stakeholders. The argument goes that the population is inspired to do (more) sport when a nation host a major elite sporting event like the Olympics or the soccer World Cup. In this chapter, we conduct a literature review to understand whether this cla...

This chapter reviews the literature on factors influencing attendance and spectator satisfaction at professional football matches in Nordic countries. We present studies testing effects related to consumer preferences, economic variables, variables related to the quality of viewing and the sporting contests' characteristics. Economic variables, mat...

Finland has a proud tradition of excellence in elite sports. Until the early 1950s, Finland was the fourth-best nation in the Olympics overall and by far the most medal-winning country per capita, and up to the 1990s, Finnish elite athletes still did well. Eurobarometer data shows that Finland is consistently top of the class in the EU concerning m...

The consensus among economists is that tangible effects associated with hosting major sporting events are close to non-existent. Costs associated with these events are usually covered by public funds, creating opportunity costs that outweigh the associated benefits. However, existing research has mainly focused on major international sporting event...

Coronakrisen satte sit tydelige præg på danskernes idrætsvaner. Under nedlukningen af det danske samfund faldt aktivitetsniveauet betydeligt pga. forsamlingsforbuddet, angsten for smitte og nedlukningen af foreningsaktiviteter, fitnesscentre og idrætsanlæg. Nogle danskere omstillede sig og begyndte at være aktive selvorganiseret, på egen hånd eller...

European professional team sports provide ample evidence of the existence of soft budget constraints (SBCs). Originally, the SBC was identified and explained by Janos Kornai related to (state-owned) firms in socialist and post-socialist economies. However, similar phenomena are far from uncommon in capitalist economies, and the peculiar economics o...

The influence of the Soft Budget Constraint (SBC) approach is significant in the social sciences, in particular economics (Mitchell, 2000). Developed by the late Hungarian economist János Kornai (1986, 1992), the approach has become institutionalized as a powerful tool for examining the problems of socialist and post-socialist economies (Kornai, 20...

Denne rapport er den første af sin slags og søger at give et overordnet billede af danske Team Danmark-atleters trivsel med udgangspunkt i en nuanceret model om mental sundhed og trivsel, som er udviklet af Team Danmarks stab af sportspsykologer. Undersøgelsen dækker alle eliteatleter, der er omfattet af Team Danmarks støttekoncept, via en spørges...

Denne evaluering af den nationale platform for koordinering af bekæmpelse af manipulation af idrætskonkurrencer (matchfixing) belyser platformens virke fra dens oprettelse i 2016 og frem til i dag. Det sker gennem analyser af dokumenter, der vedrører platformen, interviews med nuværende og tidligere medlemsrepræsentanter og embedsfolk samt relevant...

It is a common expectation among politicians, civil servants and sport managers that hosting a major sporting event or achieving international elite sport success yields a variety of positive externalities grounded in the “Virtuous Circle of Elite Sport and Events” model. However, over the years various studies have shown that this model is not nec...

Sport scandals have attracted significant interest within and beyond the sociology of sport. However, developing a theoretical understanding of sport scandals has so far been neglected. Therefore, the twofold purpose of this conceptual paper is to outline a theoretical model for understanding the form of a sport scandal, and to construct two typica...

Dansk elitesport gjorde en god figur ved de Olympiske Lege (OL) i Tokyo. Usikkerheden som følge af coronakrisen og udsættelsen af legene havde ingen negativ effekt på de dan-ske atleters præstationer. Med enkelte undtagelser levede medaljekandidaterne op til det forventede, og der var derudover et par gedigne overraskelser. Danmark hjemtog 11 meda...

Recently, 12 European football clubs launched the idea of creating the European Super League. After massive protests from fans, the Union of European Football Associations, politicians, coaches, and players, the initiative was stopped. In this commentary, the authors reflect on some of the problems facing football and argue that the creation of a E...

Research into the development and competitiveness of national elite sport systems has grown significantly in recent years. Most research concerns large or medium-sized nations whereas studies of elite sport systems in small nations are notably absent. This paper focuses on a (very) small nation and its efforts to become competitive in international...

In the literature on Dual Careers (DC) there has been an ongoing debate on whether there is a trade-off between being an elite athlete and achieving academically. Is the time needed to compete at the highest level a barrier to academic achievement? Or can knowledge and expertise obtained from an elite sporting career be transferred into academic pe...

Women’s soccer is more popular than ever, but match attendance is still relatively low. In order to develop sustainable revenue streams for women’s football, and help it grow further, it is necessary to understand what drives spectator’s overall demand. We explore factors that affect the overall match experience for spectators (i.e., spectator sati...

Women's soccer is more popular than ever, but match attendance is still relatively low. Inspired by the seminal Borland and Macdonald framework, we explore factors which affect overall match experience for spectators attending Danish women's national soccer A-team games. Using survey data gathered by the Danish Football Association (DBU) and couple...

Rapporten evaluerer Team Danmarks tilbud og ordninger på ungdomsuddannelsesområdet.

Denne evaluering af den fleksible ordning for eliteatleter på erhvervsungdoms-uddannelserne er den første af sin art i Danmark. Team Danmark-ordninger har kørt siden 1989 på ungdomsuddannelsesområdet, men har først opnået øget opmærksomhed på erhvervsuddannelserne gennem de senere år. Atleter, der har valgt en erhvervsungdomsuddannelse, har også ti...

The report examines sport participation in Greenland by means of a cross-sectional national survey. Data are collected in 2019.

Rationale/Purpose: In this paper we utilize unique spectator level data from fifteen Danish national men’s A-team football matches in the period 2013–17. Design/methodology/approach: We test several regression models with our dependent variable being a scale measuring each individual respondent’s inclination to recommend national matches to friends...

It is a common expectation among politicians, civil servants and sport managers that hosting a major sport event or achieving international elite sport success yields all kinds of (positive) tangible and intangible effects. However, over the years research has shown that this is not necessarily the case. Our research question is: Does elite sport s...

Attracting spectators to stadiums is essential for providers of professional sporting events. However, due the increasing supply of sporting events and a larger amount of the events is broadcasted on television, filling stadium as a challenging task. Generally, studies on matchday attendance in professional sports is conducted in a league context s...

Research question: The body of literature examining potential trickle-down effects from elite sport success to mass sport participation has grown considerably over the years. The evidence is mixed but generally suggests that when a nation's athletes win medals at international tournaments - for example the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup - it c...

Danish elite sport experienced a disappointing end to the year 2019. In December, the Danish female handball team performed below expectations at the World Championships in Japan with a final ranking as no. 9, which means that the team failed to qualify for the forthcoming Olympics in Tokyo. The male handball team followed up with an even worse per...

This article provides an understanding of the organization of Danish club football, including both grassroots and professional activities. We do this by analysing how it has developed and how it relates to four basic social orders viewed as ideal types; civil society, market, state and associations. Our study is grounded in document analysis, a que...

Mange aktiviteter knyttet til idretter er av en slik art at de som eier aktivitetene, engasjerer andre aktører til å produsere dem. Dette kan gjelde olympiske leker eller internasjonale mesterskap hvor eierne overlater til en by eller et land å avholde arrangementene. I tillegg vil de lokale arrangørene vaere avhengig av leveranser av varer og tjen...

The effect of live transmissions of football matches on spectator demand in European football has been extensively studied over the years, although with little focus on the smaller leagues. By deploying robust panel data regression models on Danish first tier (Superligaen) data from 2010/11 to 2015/16, this paper contribute to filling this gap. We...

The purpose of this paper is to examine citizens’ willingness to pay (WTP), in relation to having a professional first-tier football club in a medium-sized Danish municipality, when tangible economic benefits such as economic growth and/or inbound migration produced by these are absent. Using the contingent valuation method on survey respondents,...

This project proposal describes the project in more detail.

There is now less than two years before the Olympic Games takes place in Tokyo. How will Danish elite sport athletes perform in Tokyo after the highly successful Olympics in Rio, where Denmark achieved an impressive 15 medals? This report approaches this ques-tion by analysing how the international competitiveness of Danish elite sport has devel-op...

Inviteret bidrag til Social Kritik. Abstract: Kravene til eliteidrættens udøvere er uendelige. Der kan altid optimeres på træningen og bruges mere tid på konkurrence og forberedelse. Denne artikel søger med udgangspunkt i de seneste års danske forskning i eliteidræt at belyse de danske udøveres betingelser og karriereforhold. Det argumenteres, at...

Denne rapport søger at tegne et billede af idrættens økonomi i Grønland. Der fokuseres primært på udviklingen i perioden 2012-2017 for såvel bredde- som eliteidrætten. Desuden indeholder rapporten en opdateret oversigt over de grønlandske idrætsfaciliteter samt en samlet analyse af den grønlandske konkurrenceevne i international elitesport. Rappor...

Preliminary results from a study on the hosting of Formula One in Europe.

Research question: A growing number of studies of professional team sports have tried to understand the drivers behind match-day attendance. However, no research has ever been conducted in relation to team handball. As existing literature mainly focuses on European football and US Major League sports, club managers from smaller sports lack the evid...

Many scholars do not find evidence of a trickle-down effect from elite sport success to mass sport participation. Contrary to what is assumed by the trickle-down effect "theorem", successful elite sportspeople do not seem to inspire amateurs to take up sport themselves. However, recent studies present evidence that elite sport can have an influence...

Football in Denmark stands as a very popular game engaging men and women of all ages. Most of them are playing under the wings of the Danish Football Association (DFA). This paper provides a description and understanding of the organisation of football, with a specific focus on the DFA. We ask; how is club based football organised in Denmark and ho...

Globalization has had different implications for professional club football in Europe and the global football landscape governed by FIFA. In club football, Europe is at the top of the financial ladder with club revenues having increased significantly over the last decades. For teams in the ‘Big Five’ leagues, a new inflow of media rights revenues f...

This article aims to explain why Danish municipalities usually choose to comply with stadium requirements from the Danish Soccer Association (DBU) even though, in most cases, they do not have the supporter base that could fill the renovated or new stadiums to their capacities. Using institutional theory as a theoretical framework, the article shows...

2017 was a year with many excellent results by Danish elite athletes. Two prominent examples were the rise of badminton player Viktor Axelsen to be the no. 1 ranked singles player in the world and the silver medals to the Danish women’s football team at the European Championships. However, overall it was not a go od year for Danish elite sports in...

In 2003, the Danish Football Association introduced a new club licensing system for its first-tier clubs. Among the criteria for the system was a requirement for clubs to play at a stadium with a minimum capacity of 10,000 spectators. This paper aims to understand how the Danish Football Association and the Danish league clubs have succeeded in the...

This report presents the results of a screening of the sport and talent development environments in Holbæk Municipality. The screening has aimed at identifying the core strengths and weaknesses in Holbæk in relation to becoming a centre for talent development in the area of sports. The study is a based on examinations of policy documents and object...

It is a common argument in Denmark that municipal involvement in professional team sports can be justified on the grounds of local impact. The use of public funds to directly or indirectly subsidise local professional team sports clubs (PTSCs) is often seen as warranted due to the PTSCs’ positive effects on local economic growth or (inbound) munici...

Vidensoversigten ’Det københavnske idrætsliv’ består af fire hoveddele. Første del tegner et billede af Københavns Kommune på baggrund af en række nøgletal og baggrundsforhold, der er relevante for en forståelse af kommunens idrætsliv –nu og i fremtiden. Den viser, at København som landets hovedstad er en sammensat størrelse. Kommunens borgere er...

Rapporten ’Hvad bringer tilskuerne i hallen? En analyse af faktorerne bag tilskuerefterspørgslen i dansk ligahåndbold’ omfatter perioden 1992/93 til 2016. Fokus er dog primært på sæsonerne 2011/12–2015/16, hvor det har været muligt at tilvejebringe det mest valide datamateriale. Undersøgelsens primære fokus er kampe i grundspillet, da datamateriale...

Since Rottenberg (1956), Neale (1964), Davenport (1969), and Sloane (1971) published their seminal papers on the peculiar economics of professional team sports, the proportion of studies conducted in this field has grown considerably. Questions of competitive balance, labor market discrimination and the economic impact of hosting a professional lea...

Book synopsis: Written by European professors and focusing on the specificities of European sport, When Sport Meets Business analyses the growing commercialisation of professional sport in recent years and explains how it has developed into a major global industry. Structured into four sections, the book covers the key issues in the Business of pro...

De skandinaviske lande har gode forudsætninger for at klare sig godt i international elitesport på trods af relativt beskedent befolkningstal. De er stabile og velorganiserede velfærdssamfund, relativt velstående og har traditioner for at understøtte såvel elitesport som breddedeltagelse. Der er forskelligt fokus i de enkelte lande i henseende til...

Written by European professors and focusing on the specificities of European sport, When Sport Meets Business analyses the growing commercialisation of professional sport in recent years and explains how it has developed into a major global industry. Structured into four sections, the book covers the key issues in the Business of professional spor...

In 2014, the Danish elite sport organisation, Team Danmark (TD), celebrated its 30th anniversary. TD was founded by the government in response to the country’s decline in international standings. This study examines how Denmark’s international performance has developed in the global sporting arms race since then. It analyses how a small nation can...

The open European pro league structure is characterized by a certain sports competitive pressure that puts the professional clubs that compete in them at risk. This paper uses a case study of Danish professional soccer to show how the clubs in the best Danish league have responded to sports competitive pressure by diversifying their activities into...

The report compiles the Danish results in international elite sport and analyzes the level and potential of Danish sport in an international context. Similarly, it compares the Danish results with the results of other selected countries.

Traditionelt har tidsskriftet “Forum for Idræt”, og det tidligere “Idrætshistorisk årbog”, været produceret ud fra forudbestemte temaer. Tidsskriftets artikler er følgeligt blevet udarbejdet i overensstemmelse med temaet. Det har imidlertid været redaktionens erfaring, at de faste temaer virker begrænsende i forhold til at kunne præsentere en bred...

The report evaluates five out of eight dimensions of the Danish government's (2012) action in the fight against exercise doping in gyms and fitness centers. The report focuses on the evaluation of especially Anti Doping Denmark's efforts in the commercial exercise and fitness centers.

Kapitlet behandler idrættens kommercialisering i Danmark.

Kornai's soft budget constraint (SBC) approach provides a useful framework, which is highly relevant for understanding the economics of European professional sports leagues. However, it has not hitherto been used in a comparative analysis of the European and North American sports leagues. This chapter offers a novel perspective on professional spor...

Politicians and sport leaders around the globe often argue that elite sport has a positive effect on mass participation. The idea of the so-called demonstration effect or trickle-down effect, seeing international pride gained by medals won in the Olympics or other prestigious sporting events as a major catalyst for mass participation, is widespread...

While the literature on the economic impacts of major sports events has grown considerably over the years, the question of utilisation of venues built for these events after the party is over has received little attention. This article fills some of the gaps in the literature. By means of a Stadium Utilisation Index, it measures the post-event util...

Although attendance figures in Danish football’s first tier are not in line with the Danish FA’s stadium requirements, the municipalities, which to a large degree fund the stadiums, comply with the stadium requirements and assist the clubs in obtaining their necessary league licenses. Taking on an institutional perspective, this study answers the q...

India is the extreme under - achiever in international sport competitions. This has only marginally changed with the recent promotion of the Indian economy into the league of BRIC nations. Whereas in China high growth rates have been accompanied by a huge im provement of its performance in international sport events a similar impact of extraordinar...

This report is part of the international comparative research project, SPLISS. It presents the findings from research conducted on Danish elite sport.

Can we understand society by claiming it consists of communication and nothing but communication? According to German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927 – 1998) the answer is: ‘yes!’. In the following, we will briefly outline this `grand-theory´, which puts communication to the fore and subsequently focus on the sport and mass media system and how th...

Professional football in Europe is characterized by persistent deficits and growing debts among the majority of the top league clubs. Despite these problems, the clubs have an abnormally high survival rate. This paper focuses on this apparent paradox and poses the question: Why do only very few European professional football clubs go out of busines...

In 2007 a national action plan for major sport events was promoted by the Danish government aimed at using sport as a tool for branding and economic growth. The hosting of events such as the International Olympic Committee’s Session and Congress in 2009, the World Wrestling Championships in 2009, the UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship in...

This article deals with the commercialization of European and Danish football, focusing on the Danish male first-tier clubs. Based on the argument drawn from systems theory that sport serves as a mirror system in (late-) modern society, Danish football clubs are measured against a simple matrix of main performance outputs in relation to the key fac...

Purpose: According to international findings, nations today face diminishing returns on investment when it comes to elite sports. As the power struggles to win medals in international tournaments have intensified in the last couple of years, and the financial investments have increased, the market has adapted by raising the price of a medal. As a d...

Kompetitiv balance må betragtes som et grundelement for at gøre en professionel sportsliga attraktiv som forbrugerprodukt. Paperet peger på, at polarisering på nationalt plan synes at vaere en forudsaetning for, at et lands klubber kan begå sig i de europaeiske turneringer.

In the Nordic countries, national investments in elite sports have become a political issue in the wake of the Olympic Games in China. It is discussed whether the results in Beijing were satisfactory and how the results can be maintained or improved in the future. In this article the assumptions of this political debate are criticized and reformula...

In the recent years, the work of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) has influenced a number of scientific areas such as sociology, educational studies, political science and organization and management studies both in and outside Germany. By (re-)introducing concepts like communication, autopoiesis and meaning, his genuine theoretica...

Professional team sports clubs in Scandinavia and Europe operate in a complex combination of rational economic logic and emotional irrational behaviour. With a few exceptions most clubs favour winning over profit, thus producing a range of severe financial problems as a direct consequence. This essay investigates this fact and deals with Danish soc...

Artiklen giver en introduktion til artiklerne i første nummer af Forum for Idræt.

Artiklen vurderer på baggrund af med Team Danmarks resultatkontrakter med Kulturministeriet og Team Danmarks efterspørgsel efter flere penge til elitearbejdet, den danske position i den internationale elitesportskapløb og indetificerer de problemstillinger, som organiseringen af dansk eliteidræt står over for. The Danish Standings in the Internatio...

Artiklen tager udgangspunkt i en undersøgelse af kvindelige udøvere i alderen 15-18 år med mulighed for at nå eliten. Ud fra undersøgelsen gives et et teoretisk perspektiv på det identifikatoriske krydspres pigerne giver udtryk for at stå i, mellem den idrætslige og civile kontekst, dette for at forstå hvad der står på spil, når elitepiger falder f...