Sports serve politics through three major means: diplomacy, national identity/unity and regime legitimacy. This paper shows that sports, to a great extent, cannot serve Macau politics in meeting the three social purposes of sports mentioned above. Although mega events can serve the purposes of diplomacy that are conducive to improving Macau’s external relationships and international image, they are counter-productive to the Macau people’s sense of belonging to the region as well as to the legitimacy of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) regime. Nevertheless, sports have their political function in the unique MSAR political system as well, creating an arena for political power in Macau, primarily because political elites compete for the support of sports associations in political elections. Due to the special setting of Macau’s political system, sports associations have the right to select representatives for the legislature as well as to elect the MSAR’s Chief Executive. This results in collusion between politicians and sports associations.