Sport tourism in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain): examining stakeholder influence on FC Barcelona’s tourism operations

The growing appeal of sport tourism venues has introduced new challenges for global football (soccer) clubs in managing their tourism operations while addressing complex stakeholder networks. Football stadiums became ‘tradium’ spaces where significant tourism influx and economic activity occur. Using Futbol Club Barcelona (FCB) as an exploratory single-case study and drawing on Stakeholder Theory, this paper examines how key stakeholder groups, particularly the local community and commercial partners, influence managerial decision-making in football tourism operations. Based on qualitative methods, the study analysed semistructured interviews with key managers, field observations, institutional reports, and official website data through a Content Analysis. Findings revealed that commercial stakeholders—such as Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs), local agencies, public authorities, and other sport organisations—exert a considerable influence on the way FCB manages its tourism operations through attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency. Conversely, while the local community held a degree of power, its claims lacked urgency and were perceived as having limited legitimacy by football tourism managers. Theoretical contributions advance the application of stakeholder Theory to the sport tourism domain, especially to the football tourism niche, while practical implications suggest strategies for balancing organisational goals with local community interests. These findings may offer guidance for other sport organisations operating in high-demand tourism destination contexts.