Big sporting event, very small town

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2023

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Business Daily’s Matthew Kenyon visits the Dutch town of Hoogerheide as it hosts the 2023 World Cyclocross Championships.

Tens of thousands of fans will flock into the town, and spend their money on hotels, food and drink. But where does that money go? And what about the costs and disruption of putting on a major sporting event in a small place?

We hear from the head of the local organising committee, Jan Prop, on how he raises and spends his budget; from cycling’s world governing body, the UCI; and from locals and visitors about the spending and disruption that goes with any big sporting event.

Producer / Presenter: Matthew Kenyon Image: Cyclocross 2023; Credit: BBC

Transcript

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0:00.0	When you meet someone online, can you trust they are who they say they are?
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0:07.1	She's so stunning.
0:08.4	It's all well planned.
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0:16.8	exploring the world of online romance scams.
0:19.8	And it's available now.
0:21.2	Find it wherever you found this podcast.
0:27.7	You're with Business Daily on the BBC World Service.
0:31.1	I'm Matthew Kenyon.
0:32.6	And today, along with tens of thousands of other people,
0:35.8	I'm standing in a muddy field in the small town of Hohejahide in the south of the Netherlands.
0:42.3	The Cyclercross World Championships is in town and this village of around 9,000 people has been taken over for the weekend.
0:50.3	The people over here, not from this region, they spent 5.2 million euros that weekend.
0:57.0	I like concerts, so I don't think that I can judge on this thing because I don't want people to judge what I like.
1:06.0	I'm guessing they don't come when the cyclo crosses on. Oh, that's the point.
1:13.1	So what does hosting a big sports event bring to a small place?
1:17.7	And is the disruption, several weeks of it, even for a short competition like this, really worth it?
1:23.8	That's Business Daily on the BBC.
1:36.7	Well, in this part of the world, at least Hoja Haida is the centre of the sporting universe this weekend.
1:42.6	Tens of thousands of people have already arrived and more are even now streaming past me,
1:45.7	coming into the village from the fields and farmyards that have been transformed into car parks for the day to accommodate the expected 40,000 or so
	...

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