Are they both correct : a sports event or a sporting event?
I found example from Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary that shows a sporting event.
They are both correct, but I would tend to use “a sports event”
Yes, they are synonymous, but ironically I tend to say “sporting event.”
I also say ‘sports event’. Maybe we have found another Canadian vs American difference?
Could be, but with two such large countries, I would surmise that there are regional differences within each country as well as other factors.
For example in the US, the woodlouse is generally known in the South as a ‘potato bug’ whereas in the Upper Midwest it is generally known as a ‘roly-poly,’ and yet if you said ‘woodlouse’ many people wouldn’t be able to tell you what a woodlouse is. Which I think is the definition of dialect.
But even within the same family, one person might call it a ‘sports event’ and another a ‘sporting event,’ which could be an indicator of age differences or some other influencing factor, such as exposure to language in media, but is not necessarily dialect. I think the term for this would be ‘preference.’
They are both OK as others have said. Americans in general use the plural (e.g. “I like sports”), whereas other speakers use the singular (e.g. “I like sport”). I think your phrases follow on from this: those who say “sports” are more likely to say “sports event” and those who say “sport” are more likely to say “sporting event”. As an Australian, I prefer “sporting event”, but my American wife says “sports event”.
Yes, both are correct. Both are interchangeable.