The Paralympic Games: Managerial and Strategic Directions

Abstract

In 2020 it will be 60 years since the first Paralympic Games in Rome (International Paralympic Committee 2015a, b). Over that time the Paralympics have grown into the world’s third largest sporting event behind the Olympic Games and Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup. Each successive Paralympic Games has made contribution to this growth: introducing new sports, encouraging more countries to attend, increased scope of broadcasting, record ticket sales, and alternative media channels to promote the event and its athletes. From 1960 to 2020 this has led to 11-fold increase in athlete participation, “from less than 400 in 1964 to over 4,250 at London 2012 and a projected 4,350 for Rio 2016” (International Paralympic Committee 2015b). Geographically, those countries represented at the Games have grown from 21 to 164 competing for some 500 medal events up from 144. The number of sports has increased 2½ times from 9 to 23, evolving from an event for wheelchair athletes to numerous activities involving nine different impairment types (International Paralympic Committee 2015b). The summer Paralympics now has a cumulative TV audience of 3.8 billion people and has an increasing presence on social media: at London 2012, for example, some 1.3 million tweets mentioned “Paralympic” (International Paralympic Committee 2015b). Like the Olympics, the focus of these statistics has often been on the summer Paralympics, but there has also been important growth in the winter Paralympic Games (Legg and Gilbert 2011).