Entrepreneurial nations competing for attention: sport mega-events as strategic assets for soft power

Sport events have become prominent instruments through which states and city-regions attempt to generate attraction, legitimacy, and international influence. Yet, soft power effects are rarely automatic, and they often vary even within the same national setting. This study examines how sport events are strategically mobilised as entrepreneurial instruments of soft power, nation branding, and public diplomacy within the United Arab Emirates by comparing Abu Dhabi and Dubai as two sub-national cases operating under a shared federal structure.

The research adopts a qualitative comparative case study design and applies data source triangulation by combining systematic documentary analysis with semistructured interviews involving stakeholders in sport governance and event planning. Data was analysed thematically using a combination of deductive coding informed by the Soft Power Hierarchy framework and inductive coding grounded in the empirical material.

Findings show that sport does not function as a uniform pathway to influence across the UAE. Abu Dhabi's event strategy appears primarily outward-facing, with sport deployed entrepreneurially to build international visibility, strengthen tourism positioning, and compete for attention in a crowded regional environment. Dubai, by contrast, appears to use sport less as a primary external influence tool and more as a mechanism aligned with internal priorities, commercial activity, and the maintenance of an already consolidated global brand.

The paper advances soft power theory by reframing influence as a dynamic process and proposing a Soft Power Cycle that foregrounds audiences as active agents who can reinforce or undermine soft power beyond the point of direct policy intervention.