Sports Mega-events Research Articles

Mapping the role of grassroots sport in public diplomacy

In a rapidly changing international relations system, several governments are turning to sport as a cost-effective and high-profile soft power asset. However, in using sport as a tool, much of that function relates to mega-sport events, elite sports and professional athletes and neglects to include the grassroots level, where the organizations, interventions and stakeholders are considered irrelevant for state-led public diplomacy. Yet, grassroots sport-based, sport for development interventions are regularly claimed to strengthen people-to-people relations, contributing to the socio-economic development across groups. As such, gaps in the theory and practice of sport diplomacy endure what, for example, is the relation between the bottom-up, participatory approach of grassroots sport and the top-down, elitist understanding of state-led public diplomacy. This article aims to demonstrate the linkages between grassroots sport, sport diplomacy and Sport for Development and Peace while also attempting to conceptualize the term ‘grassroots sport diplomacy’.

Sport Promotion through Sport Mega-Events. An Analysis for Types of Olympic Sports in London 2012.

A substantial amount of attention has been devoted towards the potential sport legacy of the Olympic Games. In spite of the increasing academic interest in this topic, there is a knowledge gap as far as sport legacy is concerned by types of different sports. The authors bridge this gap by analysing the evolution of 43 different Olympic/Paralympic sport modalities in the two-year period after the London 2012 Olympics. By using data from the Active People Survey with a sample of 165,000 people annually, and considering some demographic variables and the effect of the economic environment, the paper aims to test the existence of a sport legacy. We have applied time series analysis and ARIMA models for controlling for economic influence and seasonal adjustment and for making comparisons among participation rates. The results show, for the total of the sports analysed, that there were 336,000 individuals who increased their frequency of participation, while there was no significant increase in the number of new participants in these sports. When we develop the analysis for types of sports, London 2012 is positively associated not only with the frequency of participation in some types of sport but also with an increase in the number of new sport participants. Gender and age differences are also detected. The results show the differences of sport legacy by type of sports. Moreover, this research has elucidated an important unrecognised aspect of the effect of the Olympic Games and perhaps major events: that they can become a major policy tool for reversing sporting inequalities.

Nationalism and Sport: A Review of the Field

AbstractThe connection between nationalism and sport seems at once both obvious and manifest, with the most lavish praise of the nation often arising at sporting events. While a sizeable body of academic literature exists on the connection between the two concepts, it remains overlapping and unstructured. This state of the field review essay accounts for the major works in this field and categorizes it according to the function it fulfills in the subfield. Specifically, it focuses on sport as a mechanism for the diffusion and creation of nationalism, sport under conditions of globalization at Sporting Mega Events (SMEs), and the connection between sport and the distinction between civic and ethnic definitions of nationality.

O setor da Construção Civil no Brasil e a atual crise econômica

O setor da Construção Civil possui participação significativa na economia brasileira, estando diretamente ligado ao desenvolvimento e produção nacional do país. A participação do setor representou 5,3% da economia nacional nos últimos anos, com forte influência na geração de empregos. Além de políticas habitacionais e obras de infraestrutura, os megaeventos esportivos também impulsionaram o crescimento do setor. Contudo, os problemas da gestão ineficaz nas ações governamentais para realização desses eventos desencadearam na recente crise econômica e subsequente retração do setor da construção civil. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar os reflexos da atual crise econômica no mercado da construção civil brasileira, iniciada em 2014. A partir das análises estatísticas foi possível avaliar o comportamento do setor bem como a relação entre os indicadores econômicos e os da construção civil. O tema possui relevância para todos os interessados no setor da construção civil que buscam informações verídicas e confiáveis. Os resultados obtidos indicam correlação forte entre o PIB do Brasil e o PIB da Construção Civil, bem como influência na taxa de desemprego. O setor da construção civil encontra-se em lenta recuperação, seguindo em paralelo com a recuperação econômica do país, sendo o setor que mais sofreu impacto da crise e apresentou uma retração de 32,6% nos últimos seis anos.

Measuring event experience and its behavioral consequences in the context of a sports mega-event

PurposeThis study aims to analyze the impact of event experience on event satisfaction and intentions to return and recommend the destination.Design/methodology/approachRelationships among constructs were tested on data gathered from 542 tourists during the America's Cup World Series held in South Italy in April 2013 by using a structural equation modeling approach. Moreover, a multigroup analysis was developed to test the possible moderator factors.FindingsThe results revealed that event experience and event satisfaction had positive impacts on the intentions to recommend and return to the host destination. Moreover, nationality, gender and trip motivation emerged as important moderating factors in the relationships among the latent constructs.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this paper enrich the existing literature and help tourism destination marketers and managers consider the triggering factors of a satisfying mega-sports event for the host destination and the marketing power of the on-site experience.Practical implicationsPractitioners should draw on the insights provided by this study to design destination strategies, particularly by paying attention to how an event experience causes an attendee to return to and recommend the host destination.Originality/valueThis study enriches the existing event literature in several ways. First, it emphasizes the importance of the event experience to the satisfaction level and willingness to return and recommend the host destination for a vacation, supporting the link between an event and its destination. Second, it provides a moderating analysis that offers new insights for marketing the event experience. It offers a multilevel model of mega-event tourism legacy, which opens up new avenues of research. Third, complementing the consumer-based analysis, this research includes the trend of visits (after 2013 to the present) to examine how a mega-sport event has brought about more postevent visits.

Volunteerism, social context and health impacts: a qualitative study of Glasgow Commonwealth Games event volunteers

ABSTRACT Volunteer engagement is crucial to the effective delivery of mega-sporting events. While evidence points to reported motivations and wellbeing benefits for individual participants during and post event, there is less evidence on how this type of civic participation relates to the social context in which it occurs and the wider social determinants of health. This qualitative study sought to understand the impacts on wellbeing and the determinants of health resulting from the experience of volunteering at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Focus groups and interviews were conducted one-year post-Games to gather the perspectives of 46 volunteers and 7 unsuccessful applicants on their experiences. Participants provided insight into the volunteer journey, contributions and associated outcomes. Wider social impacts were also reported including a renewed sense of pride in the city. The qualitative analysis suggested an important non-linear relationship between volunteer contributions, impacts and rewards, and the outcome of enhanced social connections. The emergent ‘people and place’ framework identifies some critical factors around city life and volunteer assets that planners could consider in developing and evaluating sustainable volunteering and its wider impacts beyond a mega-event.

Repeat Visitation to a Host Destination Post a Sport Mega-event: South Africa and the 2010 FIFA World CupTM Legacy

Repeat Visitation to a Host Destination Post a Sport Mega-event: South Africa and the 2010 FIFA World CupTM Legacy

Do the rich get richer? Exploring disparate effects of hosting sport mega events on high technology exports for developed and developing nations

Plenty of research has investigated the relationship between exports and economic growth. Because positive linkages are regarded as situational, research investigated a range of covariates that could moderate the relationship. One variable that has received scant attention is whether or not an economy hosted a mega sport event (MSE). MSEs spur massive technological projects that must be undertaken to prepare the locale. Three characteristics of MSEs make them of interest: they require significant influxes of scarce resources, additional rents from disrupted markets spillover to non-event contexts, and MSEs’ international scale provides opportunities for cross-border relationships. The analysis investigates the effect of a MSE on host nations’ high technology exports (HTX). Results suggest that hosting a MSE was generative of HTX for Developed nations, but not for Developing nations. This holds implications for (1) academics seeking to develop theories supporting a linkage between MSEs and entrepreneurial rents, and (2) practitioners seeking to develop optimal trade relationships.

Sustainable Sport Entrepreneurship and Innovation: A Bibliometric Analysis of This Emerging Field of Research

In the sports sector, entrepreneurship, innovation, and social corporative responsible are generating growing interest during the last years. Due to that situation, sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation in sport have emerged in this sector, receiving individual attention from academics and practitioners. However, little is known about the evolution of this new field of research. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to analyze the documents published in the Web of Science about sport sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation. The bibliometric analysis allows us to discover the current state of a research field, identify the principal authors, articles, and topics, and propose future research lines to develop it further. The articles published between 2000 and 2019 were analyzed quantitatively, and by word and author co-occurrence. Later, through the bibliographic coupling, the articles were grouped in different clusters. Seven central thematics were found, being the sports mega-events and the sustainability the most development sub-area or research, followed by the sport innovation for fostering inclusion. Moreover, for the development of this field of research, studies focused on “tourism” and “entrepreneurship” with “environment”, “sport”, “sustainability and knowledge” and “innovation” focus, are necessary. Thus, sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation in sport are an undeveloped but promising field for the future of the sports industry.

The impacts of the Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prix in the city of São Paulo

Objetivo: Explorar quais foram os impactos gerados pelo GP Brasil de Fórmula 1 para a cidade de São Paulo no período de 2015 a 2019.Metodologia/abordagem: Qualitativa e exploratória. Analisamos documentos como relatórios publicados pela Prefeitura de São Paulo e pela empresa promotora do evento, bem como informações divulgadas em veículos de comunicação. Também conduzimos entrevistas com os seguintes interlocutores: a vice-prefeita da cidade de São Paulo na época e o diretor da empresa municipal responsável pela gestão do Autódromo de Interlagos, a CEO da empresa promotora e organizadora do evento no Brasil, um jornalista esportivo e um morador do bairro de Interlagos, região onde se localiza o Autódromo.Originalidade/Relevância: Os Grande Prêmios de Fórmula 1 são utilizados por governantes como instrumentos de desenvolvimento e de promoção da imagem de suas sedes em nível internacional. Entretanto, ainda são incipientes os estudos acadêmicos sobre os impactos deste tipo de megaevento para suas cidades sedes.Principais resultados: O GP Brasil gerou os seguintes impactos para a cidade: econômicos (recursos públicos investidos, geração de empregos temporários, melhora na venda de alguns serviços como hospedagem e alimentação e oportunidades para negócios entre empresas), físicos (modificações na estrutura de trânsito e manutenção de vias de acesso ao Autódromo) e socioculturais (sensação de orgulho dos moradores e aumento de insegurança na região do Autódromo).Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas: Os resultados desta pesquisa sugerem que a realização de megaeventos pode ter impactos positivos quando ocorrem na mesma cidade ao longo dos anos, pois geram a possibilidade de reutilizar recursos pré-existentes e desenvolver conhecimentos e habilidades por parte de governantes e seus organizadores.

Influence of the Olympic winter games PyeongChang 2018 on the Korean Wave: Comparison of perceptions between Koreans and Americans

This study was designed to investigate the effects of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 on South Koreans’ and Americans’ perceptions of the “Korean Wave,” or Hallyu. To achieve this purpose, a survey that included questions about the awareness of Hallyu among South Koreans and Americans was conducted before and after the Olympics. The results show that the Olympics positively influenced Hallyu and that the effect was greater for Koreans than for Americans. After watching the Olympics, Koreans had a greater sense of cultural soft power and their perception of Hallyu’s influence on the United States than before they watched the Olympics. However, for American participants, enduring involvement with Hallyu was the only factor that reflected a positive influence. This study demonstrates the relationship between international mega-sport events and a host country’s perceived cultural values.

The ‘troika of security’: merging retrospective and futuristic ‘risk’ and ‘security’ assessments before Euro 2020

ABSTRACT Rooted in the UEFA Men’s Euro 2020 as a case study, this article examines the coalescence of futuristic and retrospective assessments in the governance and construction of security in the context of sport mega-events (SMEs). SMEs require large-scale security efforts to ensure safety for event tourists and spectators and scholars have suggested that SME security governance and risk assessments post-9/11, shaped by wider processes, have become increasingly precautionary, future-oriented and guided by the question ‘what if?’. Concurrently, scholars also note how SME security is based on the reproduction of previously tested practices and models. Building on these existing insights, this article locates these distinctive processes within the under-researched context of Euro 2020’s pre-planning and introduces a concept called the ‘troika of security’, which captures precautionary and reproduction-based mechanisms that assist security constructions and governance.

Perception of public managers on the sustainability of sports mega-events: the case of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil

The realization of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil generated meaningful transformations in the host cities. These transformations brought concerns over the sustainability of a mega-sport event. The present study tried to understand the sustainability resulting from the World Cup in the city of Natal, Brazil, from the perspective of local public managers. This qualitative, descriptive research, whose data were inductively analyzed, used a semi-open interview composed of 24 semi-structured questions in order to obtain information from the public managers at local and state levels and who are linked to the event. As a result, the managers involved concluded that the 2014 World Cup in Natal did not serve sustainability neither leave any sustainable effects. It was also observed that the lack of sustainability was due to the lack of adequate planning and technical projects, as well as to the lack of organization and social participation in the preparation and follow-up of the works and actions necessary for its accomplishment. Among the propositions of new works, there is the recommendation to analyze how the public managers and the normative regulations are dealing with sustainability in the planning and in the projects for the realization of two other mega-sport events, the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia and the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Olympic Games as Mega-Sport Events: Some Social-Historical Reflections on Recent Summer Olympic Games

This paper analyses the recent editions of Olympic Summer Games. It examines the changes and political, economical and cultural dimensions of mega-events, underlining the links among life, culture, mediascapes and cultural identities. The analysis starts with London Olympic Games 2012 and continues with the Games in Rio 2016: the primary changes in urban infrastructures and the social, political and economical transformation of the two cities together with the great impact of Olympic ceremonies in media images are introduced in the paper, with a particular reference to the symbolic representations of opening and closing ceremonies. The above mentioned events are an imaginative tour, which links knowledge, heritage, history and global values, demonstrating the interrelation between sport and other social spheres. Sport mega-events seem to create infinite world, connected with global and local culture. The opening and closing ceremonies represent also new symbolic values, and some ‘economies of imagination’, which reform urban infrastructures and open new social identity and heritage.

Development and application of PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games Accessibility Manual

Introduction In this study, the process of development, application, and evaluation of the PyeongChang Organising Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games(POCOG) Accessibility Manual was introduced and the basic data for accessing venues and ways to improve accessible sporting event management were suggested. Methods Analysing and comparing the IPC Guide and Korean accessibility laws with eight advisory meetings were held to develop “POCOG Accessibility Manual”. To verify the Manual standards, accessibility assessment of the Paralympic Test-event, Olympic and Paralympic Games was conducted. Results POCOG Accessibility Manual was developed based on the best practice of accessibility standards and feedback from various experts. Throughout the three-step verifications, many findings have resulted in the final recommendations for the improvements in the operation of the Olympic and Paralympic Games accessibility. Conclusions The study provided fundamental data to develop an inclusive game operation manual for future international sports competitions, and it could ultimately serve as a cornerstone for integration and inclusion through sports. Implications for Rehabilitation Ensuring accessibility can secure equal opportunities to participate and enjoy the events for everyone in mega-sporting events including persons with disabilities. However, the current Korean construction law does not adequately address the accessibility requirements for the Paralympic Games. Therefore, the study of the development of the 2018 Pyeongchang Accessibility Manual based on IPC guidelines was important. In this study, the 2018 Pyeongchang Accessibility Manual was applied and evaluated according to the planning stage of the 2017 Paralympic test-events, PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic and paralympic Games. The result derived from our study will provide a strategy to ensure the accessibility for persons with disabilities to countries hosting future sports events.

Negotiating Costs and Benefits Among 2008 Olympic Volunteers: A Social Exchange Perspective

Significant financial investments in organizing sport mega-events (SME) and training SME volunteers are frequently justified on the basis that local organizations can benefit from a larger pool of experienced volunteers following the event. By employing social exchange theory as a theoretical framework, this study explores the connection between the SME volunteer experience and subsequent volunteer behavior as a potential return on investment. In-depth interviews have been conducted with 15 Chinese volunteers who participated in the 2008 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games. Qualitative data offers a rich, contextualized view to understand the long-lasting impact of previous SME volunteer experiences, including not only the perceptions in terms of benefits and costs but also its influence on subsequent volunteering elsewhere in the postevent period. We identified that volunteers continue to garner benefits from their SME experience, even 8 years after the event, and mainly in the forms of social, career-related, training, Olympic-related, psychological, and extrinsic benefits. The costs perceived from the SME appear to fade away because the direct costs were covered, and the opportunity costs were low for student volunteers. The theoretical explanations of (future) volunteer behavior provided mixed evidence in the scope of three social exchange theory propositions (i.e., rationality, deprivation–satiation, and approval–aggression proposition). Findings provide valuable insights to inform organizers of SME and other activities to pay more attention to the volunteer experience and to optimize volunteer benefits and costs. Additional improvements in volunteer recruitment are important for Beijing, in preparation of hosting the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The role of mega-sports event experience and host city experience in explaining enjoyment, city image, and behavioral intentions

ABSTRACT This study used the experiential approach and cognition-affect-conation model approach to examine the effects of tourists’ mega-sports event experience and host city experience on the host city image, enjoyment of mega-sports event, enjoyment of the host city, and behavioral intentions (recommendations and revisit). Data were collected using an online questionnaire from 422 US tourists who attended the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The results support the conceptual model and the relevance of introducing the affective component in the management of mega-sports events.

Developing SPORT LEGACY through PostUse of Mega-Sport Event Facilities: The Case of Winter Sport

Developing SPORT LEGACY through PostUse of Mega-Sport Event Facilities: The Case of Winter Sport

Developing SPORT LEGACY through PostUse of Mega-Sport Event Facilities: The Case of Winter Sport

Developing SPORT LEGACY through PostUse of Mega-Sport Event Facilities: The Case of Winter Sport

Sports mega-events and shaping the international image of states: how hosting the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cups affects interest in host nations

The research presented in the article is dedicated to the issue of utilizing sports to positively affect a state’s image according to the example of staging sports mega-events. The aim of the research was to analyze if and to what extent hosting sports mega-events allows states to increase their international visibility and familiarity. The analysis was undertaken on the basis of fluctuations in the number of Google searches for the names of the countries that hosted the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cups between 2004 and 2018. Linear econometric models were constructed in order to measure the scale of the influence of hosting respective sports mega-events on the number of searches for respective countries in the Google search engine.