Age of excess: tournaments get bigger but will they get better?

The chance tocashinon mega-events’ may be ata cost tosome sports that risk killing the golden goose

- Sean Ingle

We have entered W an era where World Cup tournaments feel like the equivalent of a four-hour director's cut: brilliant but flawed, with too many throwaway scenes before the thrilling denouement. The men's Cricket World Cup took 38 days and 45 matches to whittle 10 teams down to four semi-finalists - which was 10 days longer than the entire 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar. Its rugby union equivalent needed a month and 40 games to shave 20 countries to eight. And yet we ain't seen nothing yet.

In 2027, cricket and rugby union will have four more teams and yet more matches. The 2026 football World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico is going Super Size Me: from 32 teams to 48, and 64 matches to 104. Academics have an umbrella term for tournaments so big that millions across the globe gravitate towards them: sporting mega-events. Think World Cups.

Think Olympic Games. Think big, big, big. But is big always better? The Guardian has spoken to more than a dozen experts in sports leadership, broadcasting, marketing and academia to find out. We also asked why, when we are constantly being told viewers' attention spans are shortening, are we witnessing a growth spurt in the length of sporting events? And do some sports even risk killing the golden goose?

The obvious question - "why are sports doing this?" - also has an obvious answer: cash and the chance to make lots more of it. "The number one KPI [key performance indicator] for the guys in charge of sports is to generate more money," says the sports marketing expert Tim Crow, who started his career with the Test and County Cricket Board, now the England and Wales Cricket Board, and later became a key mind behind the marketing of the London 2012 Olympics. "It's as simple as that. And the more inventory you give television, the better your deal is going to be."