The idea of sport as a social benefit does not need to be debated.

Sport contributes to personal and community health and wellbeing, to social solidarity and can provide a lifeline to children from impoverished backgrounds who otherwise may have been forgotten and bypassed by history.

We may never have known Pele or the Williams sisters if not for their remarkable sporting prowess.

Sport also builds social bridges, which is why, like music, it transcends the narrow borders we inhabit physically.

The celebration of excellence and endurance lifts us all above the mundane, bringing nations, communities and, in the case of the World Cup or the Olympics, promoting something beyond patriotism but rather international solidarity.

Equally important is that sport provides young people with life skills that can potentially translate into a useful work and life ethic.

These include negotiating, perseverance, self-discipline, coping with pressure and competition, regrouping when one fails and placing others before self.

Most of the countries that perform well at the Olympics have an intentional investment programme that includes school coaching, scouting programmes and partnerships with businesses to fund sports.

Common wisdom holds that countries that are successful in sport have huge financial resources, big populations and the correct climate.

Countries such as Great Britain, the US and Australia supposedly perform well because of their generous budget allocations, relative wealth and lifestyle of health.

This, however, does not explain why economically weaker countries are able often to compete brilliantly despite these economic inhibitors.

For more than 40 years Kenya and Ethiopia have dominated middle-distance running. Angola has excelled in basketball and Cameroon in football. Jamaica has been producing world beaters like Usain Bolt, Merlene Ottey and Asafa Powell.

South Africa, despite its economic dominance on the continent, underperforms relative to its economic endowment.

The same could be said about Nigeria with a larger population.

It is arguable that a nation's success in sport can be evaluated relative to its economic capacity and that medal achievement should therefore be weighted relative to a country's GDP per capita.

If we use this method, countries including Grenada, Jamaica, Ethiopia and Kenya were top achievers at the Rio Olympics, while South Africa performed well below capacity despite improving on their London performance. The discrepancy between financial capacity and the achievement for a given amount of resources represents inefficient resource use.

The economic costs and benefits of sport to nations run far beyond the cost and impact of hosting sports events.

South Africa is still very uneven and racially skewed in socio-spatial planning, including access to sport and leisure facilities.

Sport is inherently connected to national pride and has the potential to transcend deep divides in fragmented societies. But it also has the capacity to further expose and accentuate underlying divisions, as Rio has illustrated.

The economics of sport is further complicated by the reality that sport is big business. South Africa has the largest level of sports infrastructure and financial capacity on the African continent and is an underachiever despite this.

The racialised measure of sports success in this country underlines fundamental problems, as illustrated by the complexion of the South African Olympic team.

Creating sports utilities that communities, schools and teams can access regularly for recreational and competitive use - not white elephants - can contribute significantly to safer and better utilised public spaces.

This requires a shift away from the "events" model of sports investment. These utilities should form part of a broader development plan that also encompasses education, health and social development.

There is reason to hope that we can invest more targeted funds in particular sports, particularly in black African communities, to produce not only economic units but also people who are inspired and inspire others.

Lebohang Liepollo Pheko is senior research fellow at Trade Collective. Tweet her at #Liepollo99