Branding a City as a Sports Town: A Conceptual Model Based on ‘Track Town USA’

Governments, municipalities, and communities see potential in sports as a way to improve their image as a tourism destination, create tangible and intangible legacies, and achieve foreign policy goals. The purpose of the study is to portray a model for cities to brand themselves as sports towns and to differentiate from others by enhancing their sporting image. The study uses secondary sources from different media outlets, search engines, press releases, and libraries, to explore and analyze the case of Eugene, Oregon, which despite being smaller than 150 other cities in the United States, has been labeled ‘Track Town USA’. Building on the conceptual literature on country image, place branding, mega-events, and related fields, the study develops a model for strategically branding a city as a sports town. The model suggests strategies for cities considering to brand themselves through sports on local, regional, national, international, and global levels.