Saudi Arabia’s sports strategy is highly visible through its extensive hosting of international events. Over recent years, the Kingdom has rapidly positioned itself as a global destination for major competitions, including Formula 1 Grand Prix races in Jeddah, high-profile boxing events in Riyadh, and large-scale esports tournaments. These events serve both immediate economic purposes and longer-term strategic objectives.

From an economic perspective, large scale sporting events generate significant revenues through tourism, hospitality, and retail. Such events can stimulate GDP growth by attracting international visitors, increasing spending, and creating employment opportunities across multiple sectors. Saudi Arabia aims to increase tourism’s contribution to GDP to 10 percent by 2030, with sport playing a central role in achieving this objective. In this regard, the FIFA World Cup 2034 is expected to produce substantial macroeconomic effects, with estimates suggesting a GDP boost ranging between 9 and 14 billion US dollars, alongside the creation of up to 1.5 million jobs and the development of hundreds of thousands of hotel units to accommodate global demand. More broadly, economic modelling indicates that such mega events could contribute between 1 and 2 percent of annual GDP growth during the hosting year, while attracting several million international visitors and generating significant spillover effects across infrastructure, construction, and services.

The multiplication of international events has also contributed to the development of local capabilities in event organisation, logistics, and media production. This process of capacity building is essential for ensuring the long term sustainability of the sector, as it reduces reliance on external expertise and strengthens domestic know-how. In practice, this has led to the emergence and consolidation of a broad ecosystem of Saudi small and medium sized enterprises operating in fields such as event management, audiovisual production, digital marketing, security services, catering, and transport logistics. These developments benefit a wide range of domestic economic actors, including event service providers, media production companies, marketing agencies, private security firms, food and beverage operators, and mobility and logistics providers. In addition, large-scale sporting events generate important multiplier effects, stimulating demand in transport, hospitality, and retail while supporting the growth of small and medium sized enterprises, including hotel operators, travel agencies, restaurants, merchandising businesses, and urban mobility services.

This event driven model is complemented by ambitious infrastructure projects designed to embed sport within urban and territorial development. The Sports Boulevard project in Riyadh, spanning more than 135 kilometres, integrates sports facilities, cycling tracks, and green spaces into a continuous urban corridor, promoting both physical activity and environmental sustainability. More broadly, sporting events act as a catalyst for internal development by accelerating investments in transport, tourism, and urban infrastructure. In anticipation of future mega events, including the FIFA World Cup 2034, Saudi Arabia is expected to attract tens of millions of visitors over the coming decade, with projections suggesting that the tournament alone could draw more than five million international spectators. This has prompted large scale expansion in accommodation capacity, with plans to develop hundreds of thousands of additional hotel rooms across different price segments, including mid range and budget offerings, in order to support a more inclusive tourism model. At the same time, significant investments are being directed towards transport infrastructure, including the expansion of Riyadh Metro, upgrades to King Khalid International Airport, and the development of high speed rail connections linking major urban centres. These developments highlight how sport functions not only as an economic sector in itself but also as a structural driver of national development, reshaping urban landscapes, enhancing connectivity, and supporting the diversification of the Saudi economy.

Qiddiya represents another cornerstone of the Kingdom’s strategy. Expected to attract up to 17 million visitors annually, the project combines sport, entertainment, and tourism within a single large-scale development, generating significant economic activity and employment opportunities. Similarly, Soudah Peaks aims to diversify Saudi Arabia’s tourism offering through mountain sports and outdoor activities, with planned investments of approximately 7.7 billion dollars and a target of two million annual visitors.

Together, these projects illustrate a broader territorial transformation. They contribute to the creation of new economic zones, stimulate regional development, and reinforce Saudi Arabia’s attractiveness as a global destination. Sport thus becomes a structuring element of both economic and spatial development.