Resumo: The relationship between sporting events and the phenomenon of tourism has been a subject of relevant academic research in different areas of knowledge. The purpose of this publication is to summarize the research that has been developed in the field of sports events tourism in order to understand its characteristics, the scientific methods used, as well as the main findings and limitations. A systematic review of the literature published on the subject was conducted of journals indexed in Scopus and in ISI Web of Science between January 2010 and October 2017. A protocol was developed to perform advanced searches in the databases; 94 articles were selected in five scientific journals of tourism and sports among those in the highest quartile of the aforementioned bases. The results identify the main elements of research as well as the significant increase in scientific production. There is a broad and diverse content in the studies on the cities and host countries of the last Summer and Winter Olympic Games and of the last two editions of the FIFA Soccer World Cup. However, the number of studies on regional sporting events is limited and local. The main approaches undertaken by the research are presented, which allow us to understand the importance of this segment that has been growing significantly all over the world.
