Sport Heritage Research Articles

Spectators’ opinions about purchasing tickets from a smoke/vape-free stadium in Ireland: a qualitative study

This study sought to qualitatively explore spectators’ opinions of purchasing tickets in the future if Croke Park (a large stadium in Ireland) were to implement a smoke/vape-fee policy. During 2022 semi-final matches, a total of 107 spectators who were smoking/vaping at Croke Park’s designated areas were briefly interviewed. Transcript data was qualitatively analyzed, showing that most (80%) participants would continue to purchase tickets because of two common reasons: supporting their county at Croke Park was more important than smoking/vaping, and they would find a way to smoke/vape regardless of the rules. Reasons for not purchasing future tickets included: needing to smoke/vape, smoking/vaping is a human right, and smoking/vaping is part of the experience. The implications from the findings, and prior literature, suggest that a smoke/vape-free policy might not impact future ticket sales, given the rich sports heritage of Croke Park.

From Entrepreneurial Origins to Professional Museum: A Practitioner’s Perspective on Field Hockey’s Sporting Heritage at The Hockey Museum, England

Founded in Woking, England, in 2011, The Hockey Museum (THM) set out to achieve something unprecedented. That is, the bringing together of objects and archives that collectively chronicle the national history and development of field hockey in England, the country from which ‘modern’, codified field hockey originated before spreading globally. Formed from the personal collections of its founders and heritage material from the defunct English Hockey Association, THM has since adopted an increasingly international collecting and research remit courtesy of the involvement of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and grown rapidly in scale and professionalism. Its collection is a unique and culturally significant sporting and social history resource – the only museum for field hockey in the world. Drawing on case studies of other museums and the wider historiography of sport museums and sport heritage to contextualize THM’s evolution across three temporary premises, the author explores the entrepreneurial genesis of THM’s founding, including formative, short-lived iterations in the 1980s, before looking to the future. Addressing an identified gap in the available literature, the author examines how THM’s journey and the people involved in its development have fashioned an unusual, seemingly contradictory sport museum operating model, that is worthy of documentation and practitioner introspection.

The authenticity perception of a heritage sporting event: a comparison between residents and non-residents

ABSTRACT Purpose This study explored authenticity perceptions in a heritage sporting event, comparing residents and non-residents (i.e. international tourists) using consumption capital theory. Methodology Focusing on Sumo wrestling in Japan, data were collected from 845 Japanese residents through an online survey and 245 non-residents via an on-site survey at the Ground Sumo Tournament in Tokyo. Findings Mann–Whitney’s U test revealed that non-residents perceive greater authenticity than residents. Ordinary Least Square regression analyses examined different factors influencing authenticity perceptions between residents and non-residents. Residents’ prior knowledge significantly affected their perceived authenticity, displaying a U-shaped curve, while non-residents’ did not. Past experience did not impact authenticity perceptions for either group. Additionally, this study highlighted the impacts of consumer demographics on authenticity perceptions. Practical Implication Including residents in tourism commodification process of sport heritage events is stressed to prevent tourists’ misunderstanding of destinations. Research Contribution Our findings contribute to applying consumption capital theory in sport heritage tourism. The observed U-shaped relationship between residents’ prior knowledge and authenticity perception provides empirical support, aligning with suggestions for a non-linear relationship based on the law of diminishing marginal utility. Originality The results stimulate discussions on sport and tourism development within sport heritage, extending to UNESCO’s Traditional Sports and Games initiative.

Landscapes of Performance: Using Local Geography for the Testing of Sport School Pupils in Sweden, 1972–2023

Does nature still matter in sport? In the balancing between natural and scientific training, Swedish upper-secondary ski schools have played an important role. This paper deals with specific landscape features for testing at three Swedish ski schools: Hallstatestet in Sollefteå, Hovfjällsracet in Torsby, and Stoltjonastestet in Järpen. The following questions will be addressed: How do the coaches at each school use local tests to analyze performance? How is the importance of local tests articulated, and what roles do history and nature play in this process? The paper concludes that the use of local landscapes to articulate elite performance connects ideas of measurability and scientization to the lingering tradition of natural training. Local landscapes thereby become a mediator between scientific and experiential knowledge about sport performance and point out how local sport heritage can be used for addressing environmental issues in sport.

PRESERVING AND EXPANDING OLYMPIC SPORT HERITAGE: EXAMINING THE "PAGER" FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Objective. This review aims to investigate literature on the heritage of Olympic sport participation from 2000 to 2023 in order to assess the advancement of consistency and achievements from participation in Olympic sports.
 Methodology. The bibliosemantic method was used to clarify the state of the problem, study the analysis of the results of previous scientific research based on printed literature and electronic sources. This review study analysed broad sections including the demographic dimension, the social dimension and the intervention process. Five main research themes were summarised from these three broad sections using the PAGER system.
 Results. After the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Chinese officials declared that the goal of "attracting 300 million people to play sports on ice and snow" had been achieved. Historically, the London 2012 Olympic Games had a similar goal: to increase participation in sports for all through the hosting the Olympic Games. Given the goals highlighted, the impact of the Olympic Games on sport participation has certainly been significant. This impact can be called the heritage of Olympic sport, the intangible heritage of the Olympics. This has attracted the attention of many researchers in the academic field in recent years.
 Unlike previous reviews of sport heritage, this review applies the Patterns, Advances, Gaps, Evidence of Practice, and Research Recommendations (PAGER) framework in the stage of result analysis to enhance the quality of the findings. Numerous related studies have been studied in this review, and their scope ranges from the study of state sports policy to the impact of social, economic and cultural policies on the heritage of participation in Olympic sports.
 Conclusion. Current research, as reviewed here, tends to prioritize phenomenological descriptions and recommendations for future planning in Olympic sports. Notably, considerable progress has been made in this area. Several studies highlight the importance of collaboration and long-term planning between various government agencies and stakeholders for achieving success in Olympic sports and realizing their lasting social, cultural, and political impact.

Digital Compilation and Arrangement of the Religious Sports Heritage of the Yao Nationality In Hunan

On the basis of analyzing the status quo of yao nationality's sports heritage protection in Hunan, this paper discusses the significance of digital protection of religious sports heritage, and discusses the strategy of digital compilation and collation of Yao nationality's religious sports heritage. Resource survey and data collation are put forward. Intelligent platform and digital museum construction; Leisure entertainment and industrialization development; the four ways and measures of digital talent training provide theoretical reference and technical support for the protection and development of yao religious sports heritage in Hunan.

The origins of the Canadian Birkebeiner Ski Festival: invented traditions, winter sportscapes, and heritage sport tourism in sustainability and the UNESCO Beaver Hills Biosphere

ABSTRACT The Canadian Birkebeiner Ski Festival emerged as the world’s third Birkebeiner cross-country ski loppet in 1985, emulating the Norwegian Birkebeiner and the American Birkebeiner. This study examines the early years of the Canadian Birkebeiner as a heritage sport tourism event with routes near Edmonton, Alberta, that became an annual festival and attraction in western Canada. Invented tradition, sportscapes, and heritage sport tourism are a conceptual frame to analyse how the Festival represented the Birkebeiner legends, how skiers and skiing constituted landscapes, and how the event contributed to sustainability. The Canadian Birkebeiner resulted in a winter sport festival and sportscape that shaped cross-country skiing, trails, and public lands, and was indicative of fluid social relations and rural place making by means of skiing. Based on archival and oral history sources, the study argues the Canadian Birkebeiner was an invented tradition that originated with a ski loppet instrumental in the negotiation of terrain for cross-country skiing that contributed to winter sportscapes and heritage sport tourism in the Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Provincial Recreation Area, and, ultimately, within the UNESCO Beaver Hills Biosphere. It contributes to studies of winter events with local and broader implications for sustainable heritage tourism.

Le rôle des éponymes dans la présentation du patrimoine français au monde

The aim of our research is to present the French cultural, industrial, scientific, gastronomic and sporting heritage throughout the world on the sample of the eponyms and to determine their meanings and etymology. Eponyms are always formed using the name of the people who created / founded / discovered / invented / established / developed / proposed / described something new and socially useful / necessary / innovative / interesting. Eponyms play an important role in the process of learning the French language.

Sport (Tourism and) Heritage, Undergraduate Sport Management Degrees, and Remote Teaching: A View From Scotland

This essay examines the creation of a new undergraduate module on sport, tourism and heritage, at The University of Edinburgh, one based within the confines of a bachelor’s program in sport management. The author emphasizes that this is part of a growing trend toward integrating heritage (alongside history) into Scottish/U.K. sport management academia, as something which can potentially address skills and employability outcomes while still offering the opportunity to critically discuss issues in the sport industry. The creation, running, format, and content of this module is discussed, within the context of its first being offered remotely in September 2020 in between “lockdowns” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sports heritage and sports history: theory and practice

Sports heritage and sports history: theory and practice

Making the intangible tangible in sport heritage: a conceptual analysis of sport statuary’s spatial fix

ABSTRACT Sport heritage scholarship has grown in recent years, yet remains underexamined within the sport tourism field. In this conceptual analysis, we examine a type of tangible immovable sport heritage (Ramshaw [2020]; Ramshaw & Gammon [2017]) – sport statuary – that has a niche yet robust body of literature through the lens of the ‘spatial fix’ (Harvey [1981]; [2001]; [2006]) in an attempt to explain the value both of sport heritage as a domain worthy of further investigation and the spatial fix as a useful tool for future conceptual and empirical analyses within sport tourism. Three themes were identified from the sport statuary literature through the spatial fix lens: marketing implications of sport statuary, location implications of sport statuary, and sport statuary as an instrument to frame symbolic heritage, the latter of which is the overarching theme. The current paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, it posits the spatial fix to account for both the economic value of sport heritage phenomena and their presence in space, particularly urban space. Second, following guidance that has emerged from the literature of sport tourism’s allied disciplines of management and marketing, this paper also represents an attempt toward a framework to be used in future conceptual scholarship within the field. An important implication is that the spatial fix appears to be inherent to the process of making intangible sport heritage tangible, as demonstrated through the sport statuary literature.

Sport policy in India

ABSTRACT India boasts a rich sporting heritage dating back thousands of years. Despite its rich sporing culture, India only began developing its own sporting ecosystem in 1954 with the creation of the All-India Council of Sports (AICS), shortly after gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1947. However, in the seven decades that have passed, the systematisation and development of sport of India has been relatively slow and internationally India have had limited success on the elite stage. The aim of this profile is to provide a detailed insight into the vast sporting ecosystem in India by exploring the policies, enablers, and barriers in relation to sport participation, elite sport, and the use of sport across the nation to tackle non-sporting objectives. Following an introduction highlighting the key demographics and sporting culture in India, the profile moves onto outline the state led provision of sport in India, including how sport is organised and funded. Next, the significance of the commercial sport sector in India is highlighted, followed by a section detailing the growth of the not-for-profit sector. Finally, the profile highlights the current public policy priorities and challenges, which include elite sport success, tackling inactivity and poor governance in sport before offering some concluding observations.

Dongdaemun Stadium Memorial, Seoul: The Ambiguous Status of a South Korean Sports Heritage

Dongdaemun Stadium in Seoul was a landmark in Korea’s sports history. Built during Japanese colonial rule, the huge complex later became South Korea’s main sporting venue. Yet, in 2007 the structure was demolished amid heated debate, and, to memorialize it, two light towers were preserved and a museum named Dongdaemun Stadium Memorial was built. This study aims to evaluate the stadium and the museum’s place within South Korea’s sports heritage, thus contributing to the small yet growing body of scholarship on the sports-heritage nexus. Informed by theoretical approaches to heritage and collective memory, the study employs a mixture of sources and methods, including a close analysis of the site, participant observation, media reports, and discussions with sports-studies scholars. It is argued that despite the museum’s thoughtful and well-organized (re)presentation of the stadium’s memory – and the fact it was constructed during a favorable trend of solidifying sports heritage – the site’s heritage ended up marginal for three reasons, collectively. First, the living memory of the actual structure is still casting a shadow over the museumified version of the memory. Second, both the stadium and its memory gave way to internationally-oriented preferences. Third, the lack of sufficiently influential and pro-active agency.

Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of National Traditional Sports Cultural Heritage Based on Feature Clustering and Artificial Intelligence.

The development of three-dimensional reconstruction technology with cultural heritage in traditional sports allows an accurate portrayal of this aspect of life. Cultural heritage can be documented, recovered, and shown with the tools and techniques. It is an important aspect of self-determination and the ability of marginalized groups to engage in social and cultural life fully. The most challenging aspects of national cultural sports heritage in reconstruction, including armed conflict and war, improper disposal, pollution, poaching, natural disasters, and destruction of heritage sites, have been determined. This article introduces (SCH-AI) new technology for sports cultural heritage (SCH), which develops an improved artificial intelligence (AI) that helps reduce armed conflict and war and promotes tolerance toward religions and people. Athletics improves by bringing individuals together in a social and economic context. Sports engagement boosts community health and productivity. When a clustering algorithm is used, it analyses the data that were provided identifying organic clusters or patterns in the space of features. Clustering is the process of dividing data into distinct subsets. The scenario depicts a strength and conditioning coach who wishes to establish alternative training in sports regimens for players with varying refinement sprint timing. The research of SCH-AI has many advantages; accessing traditional games is regarded as the ideal platform for promoting peace, harmony, and cultural heritage preservation. Sports are also part of the steps to recognize and preserve the rights of people, and it is the protection of their cultural legacy. Cultural heritage gives users a sense of belonging and harmony within a community and a greater understanding of earlier generations and their history.

Sport heritage in VR: Real tennis case study

Traditional Sports and Games (TSG) are as varied as human cultures. Preserving knowledge of these practices is essential as they are an expression of intangible cultural heritage as emphasized by UNESCO (General Conference of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, at its 25th session, 1989). With the increasing development of virtual reconstructions in the domain of Cultural Heritage, and thank to advances in the production and 3D animation of virtual humans, interactive simulations and experiences of these activities have emerged to preserve this intangible heritage. We propose a methodological approach to design an immersive reconstitution of a TSG in Virtual Reality, with a formalization of the elements involved in such a reconstitution and we illustrate this approach with the example of real tennis. Real tennis is a racket sport that has been played for centuries and is considered the ancestor of tennis. It was a very popular sport in Europe during the Renaissance period, practiced by every layer of the society. It is still practiced today in few courts in world, especially in France, United Kingdom, Australia and USA. It has been listed in the Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in France since 2012.

The Deliberate and the Unintentional Mechanisms of (Sports) Heritage: Understanding the Successful Heritagization of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea

The Deliberate and the Unintentional Mechanisms of (Sports) Heritage: Understanding the Successful Heritagization of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea

#hoops #basketballhistory @Hoops_Heritage: examining possibilities for basketball heritage within the context of higher education, critical museology and digital redirections

ABSTRACT Until recently, investment into sport heritage in the United Kingdom has been sporadic, variable and inconsistent. This is particularly the case for sports conventionally not considered significant to popular national interest. In the UK, this classification extends to basketball. The situation is changing, and development of the nation's sport heritage is progressing. However, support for sport heritage cannot be guaranteed and continued efforts need to be individually and collectively made to advance its causes. Taking the development of the National Basketball Heritage Centre (NBHC) located at the University of Worcester in the United Kingdom as its focus, this paper interrogates how sport heritage practices and progress might align with the nexus of shifts in higher education (in which the NBHC resides), critical museology and digital redirections. This intersectional paradigm may yield exciting opportunities for sport heritage thought, production and action. Namely, by generating spaces of analysis, reforming modalities of production, and inspiring critical advocacy in representational praxis. Focusing on community identity and youth development, we envision the NBHC as a more than archival tome/ tomb, but as a site of transformative social inquiry that (virtually) connects the physical practices of the past with politics of the present and beyond.

Confronting silences in the archive: developing sporting collections with oral histories

ABSTRACT Neither archives nor museums are neutral. They reflect particular sets of priorities: those of the institution; the collectors and curators within them; and those of their intended audiences. In the context of sport, gender is a key influence on these priorities. Yet sporting archives are relatively silent about women's historical involvement in sport. A number of Collaborative Doctoral Partnership projects delivered through Sporting Heritage use oral history as a methodology for academic research and as an intervention in the archive, expanding collections and giving voice to otherwise under-represented groups. In this paper, I focus on issues relating to oral history in heritage settings and in the academic practice of history: the history of the methodology itself and its implications for a shared research agenda, including the extent to which oral history can – and should – be used as a method of historical recovery. In sport heritage and sport history. where men and the masculine have dominated the academic discipline and the practice of collecting, I consider the gendering of oral history, and its implications for such collections. Lastly, I reflect on the critical opportunities offered by this methodological approach, as well as the challenges.

INFLUENCE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES AS MEGA-EVENT ON URBANIZATION PROCESSES IN THE CITY AND THE REGION

In recent decades, the Olympic Games have become one of the most important mega-events in the world. The large number of cities applying for the Olympics and the increase in mega-event budgets indicate that the leadership of cities and regions perceive the possibility of holding the Olympics as a tool to improve economic and social aspects in cities by accumulating investment.
 Since its inception, the Olympic Games have closely influenced urbanization processes in host societies. From the second half of the 20th century, a significant evolution can be observed via increasing the scale of the mega-event: from the Olympic mono-stadium to the Olympic quarter, urban and regional planning. Thus, the Olympics began to provide investment not only in sports infrastructure but also in becoming an element of urban and regional renewal and development, introducing changes in transport infrastructure, housing, parks, streets, public space.
 From the point of view of urban and regional planning, the holding of such a mega-event as the Olympics is considered within the concept of the Olympic heritage; namely, researchers study the material impact of mega-events. The tangible Olympic legacy is divided into sports and non-sports. The sports heritage of mega-events includes sports facilities, as well as training facilities. The non-sporting heritage of the mega-event includes the Olympic Villages (after the mega-event, the Olympic Village usually becomes the city's housing stock), the media center (which has the potential to become a shopping, entertainment, exhibition, or multicenter), renewed transport infrastructure and public and park spaces, urban environment.
 Especially for cities hosting a mega-event, the benefits of hosting the Olympics can be vast and varied. In the post-Fordism world, cities began to consider the possibility of holding the Olympics as a tool for the revival of the city. Such applications can be called "regeneration games". The Olympic Games can be part of a strategic plan to renovate the city, significantly change the urban environment, improve transport infrastructure, and affect the quality of life in the city. However, the mega-event can have a negative impact on the city, forming an overuse of funds or the implementation of unnecessary infrastructure of the city, which declines after the Olympics.

O pequeno patrimônio esportivo: entre bem público e memória coletiva

This article analyzes the small sporting heritage. It is not limited to a classic view of sporting heritage, centered on architecture or art objects associated with sport. It aims to include everyday objects, serial objects that have a symbolic and social rather than commercial value. In order to fully understand the issues associated with this specific category of "small heritage", the article recalls some general characteristics of the concept of heritage. Examples illustrate the interest on small heritage by characters of the world of sports. The small sporting heritage, constituted by everyday sporting objects and often neglected by heritage institutions and museums, constitutes a great social wealth that must be valued for its relation to the athletes themselves. Since we here consider heritage a social resource instead of a collection of prestigious objects, ethnography allows us to empirically identify situations in which sportspeople value the small heritage linked to their practices. This is the case, for example, when groups of sportspeople organize exhibitions or collections in museums and archives. An important theoretical issue related to the association of the notions of heritage and sport is to better understand the ways in which the boundaries between public and private are articulated and shifted. Sporting heritage makes it possible to understand the historical changes in methods of organization and appropriation of sports practices. By establishing a strong link between sport, public goods and collective memories, the concept of sporting heritage opens up a reflection on the construction of identities through sport.