Sporting capital of the world

UEFA Champions League Final, 2011 (the government having made appropriate changes to tax legislation to enable it to happen); the Olympic Games, 2012; the Rugby League World Cup, 2013; the Commonwealth Games, 2014; the Rugby Union World Cup, 2015; and an impending bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018: Great Britain is rapidly becoming the world capital for hosting sporting mega-events. From both a personal and a professional perspective, great! However, a pressing question needs to be asked: why? Is Britain's success in securing the rights to stage these events due to a specific, coherent and deliberate government strategy? If it is, where is the strategy, what is its focus and what is the official line on how hosting mega-sporting events is intended to make an effective contribution to the economic, social and physical well-being of the country? In the context of this answer, are there better ways to invest the huge sums of money involved in order to achieve the same goals? And what strategies are in place to ensure that the each of the events has some sort of sustainable impact upon the country? It is also worth asking whether or not the country's bid strategy is equitable when, for instance, football gets a government backed bid committee, whereas the Rugby Football Union effectively has to go it alone and do things itself? Ultimately, should we be concerned that one country is hosting so many of the world's major sporting events - are smaller, poorer nations being crowded out of the market by the costs of bidding for and hosting such events?