Social Network Analysis

There is considerable ambiguity about what makes an event a mega-event. Intervening in this debate, this paper develops a definition and classification scheme for mega-events. On the basis of a review of existing definitions, it proposes four constitutive dimensions of mega-events: visitor attractiveness, mediated reach, costs and transformative impact. The paper develops indicators for each dimension and maps onto these four dimensions a sample of the latest editions of nine large events (Expo, Summer and Winter Olympics, Football World Cup, European Football Championship, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan American Games, Universiade). From this, it develops a multi-dimensional, point-based classification scheme of large events according to size, distinguishing between major events, mega-events and the recently emerging class of giga-events. Concluding, it identifies the need for more systematic data on the size, costs and impacts of a broad range of large-scale events over time.

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What makes an event a mega-event? Definitions and sizes

The spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020 affected the sports industry with the cancellation of many professional sports competitions worldwide. Thus, the postponement and organization of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games behind closed doors became a signiﬁcant disruption to the global sports landscape. In this paper, we present a novel, conceptual discussion, signifying and deﬁning the pandemic via the concept of international security as a hybrid threat. We associated the term hybrid threat to clarify better the difﬁcult times facing sport mega-events. First, the paper proffers that the COVID-19 pandemic is a form of hybrid threat while reﬂecting on the connected implications of using sport as a soft power tool for nations. Secondly, we discuss the impact of COVID-19 on sport mega-events globally and explain the implications of COVID-19 on the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympic Games. This paper although drawing on some ﬁgures associated with COVID-19 and the Tokyo Olympic Games presents a theoretical contribution to knowledge in the area of sport mega events, soft power and hybrid threat. We outline how the threats, triggered by the pandemic, have impeded a successful Olympic Games and clarify how these threats have affected Japan’s opportunity to use the Games as a soft power tool, which is the paper’s key contribution to the ﬁeld. on to hybrid threat Japan’s ability to the Olympic Games a soft power tool leverage the Games to their best advantage. We attest that a hybrid threatens all that the Olympics stands for, as a force for good, and suggest that COVID-19 as a hybrid threat to the Games, became symbolic of the hybrid threat to the world. We now discuss the contentious issues around this approach and tease out the diﬀerent dimensions of hybrid threat in international security literature and propose a re-conceptualization of the term to include biological threats such as COVID-19, before revealing how this impacted, and will continue to impact, on sport mega-events.

Understanding COVID-19

eParticipation research: Moving characterization forward (2006–2011)

A mega sport event involves huge investments in city infrastructure. After the event, the structures that remain may be an asset to the stakeholders, or they may be a burden. Faced with high costs, the taxpayer demands that the event-related social, economic and ecological changes will in the end have improved living conditions for the host city. But it is not easy to identify sport event legacies in their entirety, because event-related changes may be confused with non-event-related development, and because a wide variety of areas and stakeholders are affected. This paper looks at how to identify legacies, who is affected by the legacies, how long they last, and how to judge whether a legacy creates or destroys value. It stresses that legacies affect stakeholders differently – positively for some and negatively for others. It considers how to maximise positive legacies and suggests that these can best be controlled by governmental organisations. It notes that legacies gain and lose power over time and th...

A framework for identifying the legacies of a mega sport event

When the athletes enter the stadium and the Olympic flame is lit, the whole world watches. Billions will continue to follow the events and to share in the athletes' joys and sorrows for the next sixteen days. 

Readers of this book, however, will watch forthcoming editions of the Olympic Games in a completely different light. Unlike many historical or official publications and somewhat biased commercial works, it provides -- in a clear, readable form -- informative and fascinating material on many aspects of what Olympism is all about: its history, its organization and its actors. 

Although public attention is often drawn to various issues surrounding this planetary phenomenon -- whether concerning the International Olympic Committee, the athletes, the host cities or even the scandals that have arisen -- the Olympic System as such is relatively little known. What are its structures, its goals, its resources? How is it governed and regulated? What about doping, gigantism, violence in the stadium? 

In addition to providing a wealth of information on all these subjects, the authors also show how power, money and image have transformed Olympism over the decades. They round off the work with thought-provoking reflections regarding the future of the Olympic System and the obstacles it must overcome in order to survive.

The International Olympic Committee and the Olympic System: The Governance of World Sport

The Olympic Winter Games are partly held in mountain resorts and are thus closer to nature, a fact that has frequently led them to encounter strong opposition from environmental organizations. This paper recalls these episodes and explores how the ideas of environmental protection and sustainable development have been slowly incorporated in the Olympic rhetoric. It shows how a set of environmental principles developed through the experiences of local organizers at most Winter Games since the 1970s, and how the International Olympic Committee adopted them in the 1990s and incorporated them in the Olympic ideal. The article also explains why Olympic environmental concerns can be considered as one of the major non-material legacies that the winter games have bequeathed to the Olympic movement.

Olympic Environmental Concerns as a Legacy of the Winter Games

The legacy of mega sporting events can be perceived in several ways. It can be seenas positive or negative, tangible or intangible, territorial or personal, intentional orunintentional, global or local, short- or long-term, sport- or non sport-related, and canalso be seen from the various event stakeholders’ perspectives. In fact, it is muchmore appropriate to talk about legacies in the plural than simply legacy. This papergives a broad overview of an often used but rarely defined concept, using examplesfrom the legacies of the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, arguably two of themost important mega sporting events. It concludes that legacy essentially is a dreamto be pursued rather than a certainty to be achieved.

https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_35441CF31EAB.P001/REF.pdf

Mega Sporting Event Legacies: A Multifaceted Concept

Governance has been a prominent word in international sport circles since the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, better governance will not cure all the ills of this wide-ranging secto...

/pdf/beyond-governance-the-need-to-improve-the-regulation-of-24cc8q9a11.pdf

Beyond governance: the need to improve the regulation of international sport

Match-fixing has been designated as a new scourge of sport at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and sports organizations as well as other stakeholders have started to fight against it as t...

Jean-Loup Chappelet

Papers

The International Olympic Committee and the Olympic System: The Governance of World Sport

Olympic Environmental Concerns as a Legacy of the Winter Games

Mega Sporting Event Legacies: A Multifaceted Concept

Beyond governance: the need to improve the regulation of international sport

The Olympic fight against match-fixing