Impacts and Strategic Outcomes from Non-mega Sport Events for Local Communities

Do small- and medium-sized sporting events affect the overall wellbeing of people living in the host community? If so, how they do they affect local life? This book specifically addresses the strategic choices that host communities make when hosting non-mega sporting events, and looks at the outcomes of those choices. The contributions to this study assess a variety of tangible and intangible effects, including the economic and social impacts, and the effect on tourism and participation in sport. It contains analysis of a variety of events, including spectator and participant events, single-sport and multi-sport events, and one-day and multi-day events, all hosted in different types of cities and communities around the globe.

Overall, this book identifies and extends our understanding of the nature, management, and implications of non-mega sporting events. The impacts and strategic outcomes highlighted here have practical value for sport event management and strategy, and advance our understanding of the economic and social consequences of hosting an event. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Sport Management Quarterly.

Marijke Taks is a full Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Windsor, Canada, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Her research focuses on the socio-economic aspects of sport, with a particular emphasis on impacts, strategic outcomes, and leveraging of sporting events.

Laurence Chalip is the Brightbill/Sapora Professor, and Head of, the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. His research focuses on the uses of sport as a policy tool, including consequent needs in sport policy.

B. Christine Green is Professor and Director of the Sport+Development Lab at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. Her research focuses on the intersection of sport and development, with particular emphasis on the development of sport opportunities and their consequent outcomes.