Sport mega-events, visitor experience and nation brand capital:  evidence from AFCON 2025 in Morocco

Sport mega-events are widely promoted as accelerators of nation brand equity, yet the mechanism that converts event visibility into durable brand capital remains poorly specified, particularly for emerging economies. This study tests a sequential mediation model SPME→EXP→IMG/CRED→INT in which a perceived sport and mega-event lever (SPME) shapes the lived experience of international visitors (EXP), which in turn feeds two parallel cognitive pathways: perceived national image (IMG) and perceived institutional credibility (CRED), both hypothesized to drive positive behavioural intentions (INT) toward the host nation. Data were collected from 314 international visitors present in Morocco during the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4, with confirmatory factor analysis cross-validation in AMOS 27 and 5,000-replication bootstrapping. Six of eight hypotheses were supported. Lived experience emerged as the central activation mechanism, and national image predicted behavioural intentions far more strongly than institutional credibility, which exerted no direct effect (H5 rejected). Sport retained a residual direct effect on intentions, indicating partial rather than full mediation. We introduce the Post-Event Leveraging Gap (PELG) to theories why visibility peaks fail to translate automatically into measurable brand gains. The findings reframe visitor experience as a sustainable intangible legacy and offer a diagnostic logic for Morocco's positioning ahead of the 2030 FIFA World Cup.