UK Sport is the lead government agency for major sporting events at the UK level. We work closely with our sporting and hosting partners to ensure that the UK successfully bids for and stages a range of the world’s biggest international sporting events.
Our event programme is focused on creating the greatest decade of extraordinary sporting moments; reaching, inspiring and uniting the nation; by:
- Supporting and profiling high performance success for British athletes
- Creating high-profile opportunities to help engage people with sport
- Driving a positive economic benefit for communities across the UK
UK Sport has three main roles across major events
Strategic
UK Sport works with National Governing Bodies to develop and agree the UK’s list of future major event hosting targets. We share this list with cities, regions and nations across the UK, and support the process of major event venue and identification and selection.
In partnership with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, we developed the Gold Framework, to set out the the guidance on UK-level financial and strategic support available when bidding for and staging major sporting events.
Financial
UK Sport invests both National Lottery and government funding to enable the bidding and staging of strategically important international sporting events to be hosted in the UK. We make our investments ahead the bidding process and spend a significant amount of time helping to develop robust event business plans and budgets to determine the appropriate level of investment into each event.
Technical
UK Sport provides advice and technical support to the events that we fund, as well as the wider major event hosting system. More details on the types of support we can provide can be found within the Gold Framework guidance and on our Event Support Services page.
Useful Documents
Making Live Sport Matter: UK Sport’s strategic framework to maintain the country’s reputation as a world-leading host nation through securing a programme of events including the most impactful international events in women’s sport, whilst continuing to pioneer the integration of men’s and women’s events and the integration of Olympic and Paralympic sports.
Investment Guide: The purpose of this guide is to provide you with information on how to submit events for our consideration and, should your event be designated as a strategic priority for the UK, the process to apply for National Lottery investment.
Gold Framework: Guidance on UK-level financial and strategic support from DCMS & UK Sport, available when bidding for and staging major sporting events.