Abstract: As a crucial strategic pivot for activating consumer spending potential, sports events exhibit a significant multiplier effect in expanding domestic demand and driving economic growth. This study empirically analyzes the impact mechanisms of sports events on unleashing consumer spending potential using panel data from 30 provinces of China between 2014 and 2023. Key findings include: 1) Sports events significantly and positively promote the unleashing of consumer spending potential, with results remaining robust after rigorous robustness and endogeneity tests; 2) mechanism analysis reveals a dual-driver effect through “consumption structure optimization and industrial structural upgrading”, where demand-side potential is activated via refined consumption patterns while supply-side quality is enhanced through industrial integration and upgrading, creating a virtuous supply-demand synergy transmission mechanism; 3) heterogeneity analysis shows stronger consumption responsiveness among high-income groups due to financial capacity and demand elasticity, greater spillover effects in event-driven economic activities in eastern regions owing to economic foundations, industrial clusters, and market scales, and superior consumption-boosting effects in highly market-oriented regions benefiting from resource allocation efficiency and price mechanism advantages. The conclusions highlight two synergistic pathways: 1) Sports events stimulate advanced needs in health, social interaction, and self-actualization, driving consumption structure upgrades from material-based to service-oriented and standardized to personalized; 2) concurrently, their industrial linkage and innovation spillover effects propel industrial upgrading and sports industry chain refinement, generating consumption multipliers through novel supplies and scenarios. Policy recommendations include enhancing event consumption experiences with differentiated offerings, optimizing event product supply while intensifying promotional efforts, innovating ancillary service models for holistic event experiences, and elevating value of the event industry chain to advance structural optimization and industrial upgrading.