Leveraging Mega-Event Legacies

This is a multidisciplinary contribution to the burgeoning literature on and around mega-events in general and sports mega-events in particular. The volume is not specifically about mega-events or their management, but rather how such events act as a lens through which a number of important and critical questions about the decisions to host, the host nation, its society and the politics of culture, sport and leisure more broadly can be dealt with. In doing so this book seeks to build on, and out from initial work on (sports) mega-events by acknowledging the major shift towards ?emerging? states awarded such events since 2006 and incorporating the latest advances in research that have taken place in recent years. For example, debates about what constitutes a ?mega-event?, what is meant by a ?legacy?, what is ?soft power? and so on are dealt with from a team of leading academics from a variety of academic disciplines. This book was previously published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.

Introduction 1. What makes an event a mega-event? Definitions and sizes 2. A framework for identifying the legacies of a mega sport event 3. Towards a mega-event legacy framework 4. The psycho-social impact of the Olympics as urban festival: a leisure perspective 5. For the benefit of all? Developing a critical perspective in mega-event leverage 6. Soft power and soft disempowerment: Qatar, global sport and football’s 2022 World Cup finals 7. Embracing the games? Leverage and legacy of London 2012 Olympics at the sub-regional level by means of strategic partnerships 8. Leveraging mega-events beyond the host nation: a case study of the 2010 FIFA World Cup African Legacy Programme in Cameroon and Nigeria 9. Leveraging mass participation events for sustainable health legacy

Jonathan Grix has published widely on sport politics and policy. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics published by Routledge and the Director of the Sport Policy Centre in the University of Birmingham’s School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences.