Analysing and understanding the true impact of hosting events
Global Sports Impact (GSI) Project
What is the GSI Project?
Working with a wide variety of stakeholders and experts worldwide, through its Global Sports Impact (GSI) Project, Sportcal has developed a methodology to measure the holistic impact of events and a standard to capture the narrative coming from these events to produce comprehensive and informative analysis and insight for the sports industry.

Sportcal has developed a knowledge-sharing portal that enables rights holders, hosts and stakeholders to understand more about the wider impacts of their events, providing greater insight into the benefits of hosting major sporting events.

A range of services have been developed through the GSI Project, aimed at helping stakeholders capture information about their events, analyse the data and benchmark against other events, nations and cities.

GSI Methodology
GSI Rating System

In 2012, the GSI Project methodology was used to interrogate the data stored in Sportcal’s Events database to create a GSI Event Rating for a defined set of events.

Data across multiple impact pillars is entered in to a banded and weighted algorithm which produces the GSI Event Rating.

The GSI Event Ratings is then used to produce Sportcal’s suite of indices:

  • GSI Nations Index
  • GSI Cities Index
  • GSI Events Index

GSI Nations Index
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GSI Cities Index
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GSI Pillars
GSI: A quick guide
GSI Project A methodology to measure the holistic impact of events, and a standard to capture the narrative.
GSI Report The GSI Project’s annual publication, which analyses and benchmarks major events and their impacts.
GSI Experts Programme A programme through which experts from throughout the sports industry can input into shaping the future of the GSI Methodology.
GSI Methodology The principles and structure by which the GSI Project assesses the holistic impact of events.
GSI Event Rating A points score attributed to a single event, calculated using the GSI Methodology, drawing inputs from the event’s raw data across key impact pillars.
GSI Events Index Ranked list of events in any given year or cycle by their GSI Event Rating.
GSI Global Sports Nations Index Ranked list of nations across a given period, by the cumulative score of the events that nation has hosted.
GSI Global Sports Cities Index Ranked list of cities across a given period, by the cumulative score of the events that city has hosted.
GSI Event Studies Application of the GSI Methodology to holistically assess an individual event.
GSI Event Studies Programme The programme that has been launched for the 2017-2020 Olympic cycle, to assess the impact of world sport over that period.
GSI Workshops Gatherings bringing together event owners, hosts and other stakeholders to discuss the impact of sport and development of the GSI Project.
GSI Steering Committee Group of appointed industry experts and members of the GSI Project guiding the development of the project and setting the principles for the standardisation in measuring the impact of sport.
GSI Partner Programme Programme open to the industry providing the opportunity for organisations to receive access to all GSI Project-related products and services.
Sportcal Events Intelligence platform hosted on the Sportcal website, showcasing event impact data from 2,500+ events, live bidding information on 600+ available events, and an archive of 3,300+ past bidding processes.
For further information, please contact gsi@sportcal.com or call +44 (0) 20 8944 8786