LAUSANNE, February 25, 2020 – In search of the city most associated with sport, leading global
communications agency BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe) today released its 2020 Ranking of Sports
Cities. For the first time in the eight-year history of the ranking, New York took first place, besting
perennial leader London. Paris, Los Angeles and Lausanne remain in the top five sports cities
worldwide.
The BCW ‘Ranking of Sports Cities’ evaluates top 50 sports cities from around the world based on a
quantitative digital footprint analysis of the association between sport and a city (weighting 50
percent), combined with the perception-based views of leaders of International Sports Federations (25
percent) and major international sports media (25 percent). BCW tracks this data, along with other
sport and societal trends, to inform its BCW Eventus™ offering, which helps countries, cities, sports
organisations and brands maximise the value of major sporting events.
With each edition of the ranking, the three lowest ranked cities drop off the list and the top three nonlisted cities named by survey respondents are added. New cites that will be added to the 2021 edition
of the ranking are: Marseille (FRA), Milan (ITA) and Oslo (NOR).
Donna Imperato, BCW Global CEO, said: "Sport has a powerful ability to attract, engage and move
people. Through an integrated, audience-centric approach, as we’ve pioneered through BCW
Eventus, sporting events can become excellent vehicles for promoting a city internationally and
creating economic impact."
Lars Haue-Pedersen, BCW Managing Director – Sports Practice, said: "This year's results confirm the
trends we have been observing for some time in sports and cities. The cities whose image are largely
associated with sports are either hosting major international sporting events - in particular the Olympic
Games, of which six of the top 10 cities in the ranking have hosted or will host the Games - or are
home to renowned professional sports teams that promote the city's name week after week. It is also
interesting to note that the many smaller cities making their way up the ranking have developed smart
strategies that make full use of the power of sport to raise their profile around the world."
Download the 2020 Ranking of Sports Cities combined with key learnings from the results.
About Burson Cohn & Wolfe
BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe), one of the world’s largest full-service global communications agencies,
is in the business of moving people on behalf of clients. Founded by the merger of Burson-Marsteller
and Cohn & Wolfe, BCW delivers digitally and data-driven creative content and integrated
communications programs grounded in earned media and scaled across all channels for clients in the
B2B, consumer, corporate, crisis management, CSR, healthcare, sport, public affairs and technology
sectors. BCW is a part of WPP (NYSE: WPP), a creative transformation company. For more
information, visit www.bcw-global.com.
Contact:
Heloise Signe
Account Director, Burson Cohn & Wolfe – Sports Practice
heloise.signe@bcw-global.com
Tel. +41 21 313 23 00
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