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This study extends the event leverage model and applies the community development theory to explore how event managers can leverage recurring, non-mega sporting events for sustainable socio-economic development.

The authors conduct a survey comprising 6 semi-structured interviews by targeting recurring participatory events in Japan with an average 37.7 years of history.

The model highlights the strategic objectives (community needs) for socio-economic community development by attracting tourists during both event and event-free periods. Social development comprises three factors: social capital, sport participation and health promotion. Economic development comprises two factors: event revenue and tourism revenue. To achieve strategic objectives, the uniqueness of the event, good relationships with the media and locals, a platform to enjoy the local culture and sport event infrastructure are identified as means (community assets). Furthermore, locals and media are added to the model as key stakeholders, an additional category of the event leverage model.

Event managers need to make efforts to identify local resources and should optimize the event to attract participants and tourists for socio-economic development. In particular, local experience, local products, local culture and good relationship with locals could be key resources to produce sustainable benefits for the local city. The proposed model adding locals and media as key stakeholders could be useful for other similar contexts/future events aimed at socio-economic benefits for community development.

The proposed model extends the theoretical explanations in the literature on leveraging strategies through events to the perspective of the community development theory. Specifically, this study sheds light on community needs and assets for community development in the context of recurring non-mega sporting events.

In the study, an attempt was made to estimate the social benefits resulting from three non-mega sporting events organized in Ergo Arena located on the border of two cities in Poland. By attributing a value to intangible social benefits, the intangible effect was determined and compared to the expenditure incurred in the construction of Ergo Arena Hall.

In order to value social intangible effects of three non-mega sporting events the Contingent Valuation Method was applied. Each time, the Contingent Valuation Method study covered the area of the two cities: Gdańsk and Sopot and was conducted on a sample of 500 people – 250 per city. The mean values of Willingness-to-Pay were used in order to obtain aggregate values of intangible benefits. Finally, the aggregate results were compared to expenditure incurred in connection with the construction of Ergo Arena Hall.

It appeared that intangible effects were eagerly valued by the residents of Gdańsk and Sopot. The aggregated value of all three sporting events was estimated at PLN 8.8 million. The obtained results question the equal share of both cities in financing but confirm that under certain circumstances, hosting non-mega sporting events may justify the use of public funds. In the case of the two cities, the reasonable reason for the employment of public means is the size of Gdańsk compared to Sopot.

The paper fulfils the research gap which arises regarding Willingness-to-Pay in estimating the intangible social effects of non-mega sporting events and considering these effects in the net effect valuation. The findings have implications for policy makers since they show to what extent it may be justified to use public means in order to host non-mega sporting events.

Using Beijing’s bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games as an example, the purpose of this paper is to explore the expected social impact of mega-sporting events, as perceived by non-host city residents, and the way in which this perception affects attitudes toward bidding.

An empirical survey study was conducted in which data were collected from residents in Shanghai, comprising a sample of 483 respondents. An exploratory factor analysis identified 40 items loaded on eight distinctive factors that underlie the expected social impact of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to determine the effect of the perceived impact on residents’ attitudes toward the bid to host the Olympics.

Among the eight identified impact factors, six were found to be positive and two negative. While all factors were significantly higher above the point of indifference, perceived positive impact factors tended to outweigh those that were negative. In addition, seven out of the eight factors were found to be significantly predictive of support for Beijing’s bidding: while the effect of “tourism and environment,” “social capital and psychic income,” “international cooperation and exchange,” “infrastructure,” “national image,” and “sport development” was positive, the effect of the “higher living cost” factor was negative with regard to the support of the bidding. This study seeks to contribute by taking a non-host community perspective.

A growing body of literature has documented perspectives on events and their specific timing during event cycles, i.e., during the bidding stage. In addition, it also offers insight into the perception and attitudes of citizens from emerging markets toward event bidding and hosting, both of which play an increasingly important role in global sports but, on the whole, remain relatively under researched.

It is crucial to create an inclusive society through sport. Many researchers have focused on the social benefits of hosting events and identified the necessity of revealing the impact of parasport. There is inadequate knowledge of what local residents perceive from spectating non-mega-parasporting events. Therefore, this research aimed to reveal the influence of spectators' perceived social benefits, subjective well-being, and support for parasport events.

A survey was conducted with questionnaires distributed to spectators of two wheelchair basketball tournaments. Of the 2,100 questionnaires distributed, 1,996 were returned; of these, 1,544 were rejected because of not having local resident status. The final response rate of useable questionnaires was 22.6% (n = 452).

Both community benefits and cultural/educational benefits positively affected subjective well-being, which also significantly affected support for the event. Further, there was no significant moderating effect of having family members or close friends with disability.

The results indicate that sporting event managers can collaborate with local educational boards and use sporting events as educational material for children to raise next-generation, highly diversity-minded leaders from the local area.

This study revealed that parasporting events have educational value. Additionally, athletes with disabilities inspire spectators, which changes the perception of their educational impacts.

How could a city, a region or a country succeed in its attempt to use sport to (re-)define, position and promote itself? Consequently, what do jurisdictions and brand managers need to consider when using sporting events as a leverage to market themselves abroad? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper draws from a combination of an extensive literature review and secondary data collection in order to build a conceptual framework, entitled the “diamond” of place branding through sport.

Managers and politicians of cities, regions and countries should espouse a holistic approach when developing their place branding strategy through sport. This holistic approach can be articulated around four dimensions: sport, economic, commercial and social.

Drawing mainly from a literature review, with the support of concrete examples, this is a first step within the confines of an exploratory research. A future study could analyze the specific cases of jurisdictions and how these fit within the conceptual framework articulated in this paper.

A place branding strategy through sport should be translated into a socio-economic legacy, with private and public benefits for the community. Ultimately, place branding through sport is one of the components of the overall place branding strategy of a jurisdiction.

To examine the social impact of a small-scale sporting event and its influence on the willingness to support future events.

A self-supplied questionnaire was used with 248 residents-sportspeople that participated in the Valencia Triathlon. Descriptive analysis, exploratory and confirmatory factorials were done through SPSS, FACTOR and EQS.

Three dimensions of positive impacts were identified; sporting participation and city image, social development and human capital and economic development. The impacts in sporting participation and in the improvement to the image of the city contribute to positively explaining the willingness to support the holding of sporting events. Local sportspeople highlight their participative component and the projection of the city image as key factors to endorse holding future sporting events as a strategy for tourism.

The convenience sampling limits the extrapolation of the results.

Making the most of the intangible aspects is recommended due to the great potential these events have to generate social capital and increase the networks of social collaboration. Give a more active role to volunteers and local organizers in an organization. Transmit the pride of the community and the sense of belonging to this community to the media and advertising communication.

Small scale sporting events can contribute to improving the quality of life, increasing pride, the sense of belonging of the residents, opportunities for entertainment and encouraging local participation.

A contribution to the empirical analysis of the social impact of small-scale sporting events from the perspective of local participants.

Both groups are profiled in terms of travel-related and socio-demographic characteristics. Furthermore, the purpose of this paper is to address determinants of spending for each spectator group. Data collection was conducted using an on-site questionnaire. Analysis of variance between profile characteristics is based on χ² and Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests, whereas the analysis of determinants of spending builds on the Tobit model.

Recurring sport events that do not count among the mega sport event category have become a popular means of attracting tourists to a destination. Thus, research on different spectator groups attending such events is very relevant, yet surprisingly scarce. This study helps filling this void by a comparative analysis of two types of spectators present at the Professional Windsurf Association Windsurf World Cup on the German island of Sylt: travellers who come to Sylt solely for the event (event tourists) and travellers whose motivation to visit the island was not primarily driven by the event (regular tourists).

The results show that the two examined groups are clearly distinguishable, both in terms of profile characteristics and determinants of spending. This indicates that specific strategies seem advisable for sport event and tourism destination managers at mature tourist destinations.

The study’s major contribution to both tourism and event management literature is that it exposes key characteristics of and differences between both groups within a specific setting at a non-mega sport event at a mature tourist destination.

Hosting events can attract visitors to an area and provide an opportunity for local businesses in the host community to benefit economically. Restaurants, in particular, have an opportunity to benefit as food is a necessary expenditure. However, previous research suggests that the intentional attraction of event visitors by local businesses has been minimal. The purpose of this paper is to explore perspectives of event leveraging held by restaurant owners/managers and a destination marketing organization (DMO).

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with owners/managers of 16 local restaurants and from three DMO executives in one medium-sized city in Ontario, Canada. Data were analyzed using initial and axial coding.

Findings indicate that restaurants did not engage in event leveraging. Three common reasons emerged to explain their lack of engagement in leveraging, including: a lack of a belief in benefits from leveraging, inconvenient proximity to event venue, and not being prepared for event leveraging opportunities. The DMO had a desire to assist local business in leveraging, but their ability to do so was negatively impacted by a lack of awareness of events being hosted, disengagement by local businesses, and limited resources.

Findings suggest that there is a need for DMOs and local businesses to create stronger and more supportive working relationships that address financial and human resources constraints preventing the adoption and success of event leveraging. As part of this approach there is a need for cities to make stronger financial investments in supportive agencies such as a DMO.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how a legacy of event hosting competencies from one event can contribute to advancing the overall hosting capacity of a nation for future events. More specifically, the project focuses on determining the event hosting capacity legacies from the Men’s Under-20 2007 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) event in Canada and how they contributed toward winning the rights for the Women’s FIFA World Cup 2015 event.

A qualitative case study design focusing on FIFA events held in Canada in 2007 and 2015 was used.

Four broad event hosting capacity legacies from the U-20 2007 event that potentially impacted Canada’s ability to secure the WWC 2015 were identified. These legacies included: exemplifying success, advancement of hosting concepts, staff and leadership experience and development and enhancement of sporting infrastructure.

The findings formed the basis of a discussion on the increasing formalization of event organizing committees, the need to consider collective (i.e. multiple events) legacies in the development of hosting strategies as well as the importance of developing the trust of the local community to support future sport event bids and hosting.

The originality and value of this research paper lies in its use of empirical case study findings to illustrate the potential for hosting capacity legacies of sporting events as well as the level and type of event under investigation (i.e. large-scale, football/soccer).