The Guardian has a useful article today summarising what it believes are the main business winners and losers (in the UK) from the World Cup 2010. It uses reported financial results and other marketing data as the basis for the analysis (which is an interesting discussion point for students). Well worth printing out and using as an example of external factors which affect demand in a market.

Inevitably the article focuses mainly on retailers - who tend to release more data, more quickly than other sectors.

The more confident students might question some of the analysis and evaluation in the article, perhaps questioning whether it was the World Cup which was the reason for a better/worse performance - or whether it was the underlying competitive strength of the business which was key.