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The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of para-sport spectator motivation on spectator revisit intentions and the mediating effect of attitude on motivation and revisit intentions.

This study was conducted in the context of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Paralympic Games. A total of 350 respondents completed a survey. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to analyze the data.

Inspiration, supercrip image, physical skill/aesthetics, and social interaction had strong influences on attitudes toward Winter Paralympics, and attitude was also shown to have a strong impact on revisit intentions. The results also revealed the mediating effect of attitude on para-sports motivation factors (inspiration, supercrip image, physical skill/aesthetics, and social interaction) and revisit intentions.

This study extends the literature on para-sport spectator motivation. Although there are a few studies examining spectators' motivation to attend para-sport events, there is limited research on the relationships among motivation, attitude, and revisit intention based on consumer attitude theories. The results are valuable to sport managers in increasing the propensity of para-sports events by understanding the factors that lead to changes in attitudes and increases in future attendance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore social capital emerging from the collective set of activities pursued by a network of stakeholders leveraging tourism benefits from the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games (the Games).

A case study of an Olympic tourism consortium (the Consortium) established to garner tourism benefits from the Games illustrates the forms of social capital development emerging from this initiative. A three‐phased research process involving a literature review, key informant interviews with Consortium stakeholders, and a follow‐up on‐line survey with these representatives informs the study's data collection and analysis process. Aspects of bonding, bridging and linking social capital creation are examined.

Varying levels of confidence, trust, mutual respect, personal ties, shared values, and human capacity were generated through the Consortium's activities. This social capital was perceived as a valuable but fragile legacy capable of nurturing increased leadership and organizational capacity particularly when tackling issues confronting the industry's overall sustained prosperity. They also felt that the value and momentum of the social capital legacy might be imperiled by a limited appreciation of how to effectively activate it in a post‐Games environment.

Insights are provided into the social capital that networks of stakeholders can generate when working collectively to leverage benefits from sport mega‐events such as the Games.

The research contributes to emerging discussions concerning social capital leveraging in tourism related sport mega‐event management settings.

To discuss our experiences producing a short documentary film focused on a sport-related environmental issue – and reflect on our attempts throughout production to “do” what we are calling “Environmental Sports Journalism” (ESJ).

Following ESJ principles, and in collaboration with Vancouver-based filmmakers, we produced a short documentary entitled, Mount Gariwang: An Olympic Casualty, about the destruction of an ancient forest for a sport mega-event (i.e., the PyeongChang Olympics). We discuss and reflect on our approach and methods for producing the documentary, and identify key issues faced throughout the process – as we attempted to negotiate the intricacies of documentary work and collaboration between academics and media producers, while attending to a set of principles for producing “Environmental Sports Journalism.”

We reflect on strategies used and challenges faced when attempting to produce a short film on a sport-related environmental issue. We note our attempt to: (1) include interview segments with definitions of key concepts and how they are relevant to power relations around sport mega-events; (2) value the lives and voices of local and marginalized people – while noting problems we faced providing adequate context; (3) focus on problems of nonhumans as well as humans – and the challenges we faced including nonhuman issues and perspectives, challenges that reflected the limits of our chosen data collection and reporting techniques; (4) offer some form of hope and identify alternatives around an event that we were critical of; and (5) highlight the complexities of prioritizing social and environmental justice (i.e., taking a side) while attempting to offer what we might think of as “balanced” coverage.

This chapter illuminated barriers we faced in our attempts to produce “excellent” coverage, and in going from media critics to critical media producers. Our hope is to inspire reflection on what is possible around the production of “excellent” sport-related environmental journalism, and to contribute to thinking about the pursuit of public sociology through media.

Although involvement in documentary-making as academics is not new, our attempt to apply principles associated with environmental journalism to the study of sport-related environmental and social problems is in some ways novel, and therefore our reflections on our experiences are also in some ways novel.

This paper aims to contribute to the event legacy discourse by exploring the nexus between event legacy literature and destination competitiveness by focusing on disability sport events or parasport and addressing an identified gap in the research literature.

This is achieved through conducting a systematic review of disability sport events literature; performing an audit of international disability sport events; developing a typology of disability sport events; and outlining a research agenda drawing upon these previous steps. The typology is then placed in context to the destination competitiveness framework to provide direction for both host organizing committees and tourism destination managers. The research framework reflects the complexity of disability sport events with specific reference to the social impact of disability sport events for destinations.

Despite calls for increased research into accessible tourism and events, the potential social legacy for communities and destinations from disability sport or parasport events remains absent from most sport, event and tourism literature. The findings and resultant typology from this study provide an interdisciplinary approach to value add to the disability sport event and destination management sectors. The combined understanding of both sectors creates an opportunity to leverage further events through marketing accessibility as a competitive advantage, seizing opportunity for international and national disability events, and the subsequent event accessible tourism and general accessible tourism that improved destination accessibility provides a host city or precinct.

The disability sport event typology and a research agenda that supports future research are outcomes of this research.

These insights are beneficial to both researchers and practitioners interested in leveraging the opportunities from disability sport events to support sustainable destination development and competiveness that reflect the needs of a population with diverse access needs, including our ageing population, those with temporary disability and parents with young children.

This research lays the groundwork to support the desired social legacy for future host communities. From a theoretical perspective, given the paucity of research on disability sport, the typology offers a means to evaluate and monitor the impacts of various types of events from the perspectives of sustainable development, tourism, accessibility, community engagement and public policy. The addition of understanding destination competitiveness and the underlying criteria for accessible destination development provides opportunities to further leverage disability sport event beyond the event itself for ongoing accessible events, tourism and disability employment opportunities.

This study examined the characteristics, motivations and satisfaction of volunteers for the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon Weekend across a 10-year period. The purpose was to enhance our understanding of sport event volunteers, especially in the long term. This information and insight may be useful in light of ongoing challenges with volunteer recruitment and retention, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors developed and implemented an online survey, based primarily on the Special Event Volunteer Motivation Scale (SEVMS) and the Volunteer Motivations Scale for International Sporting Events (VMS-ISE). The sample included a total of 2,038 respondents – 1,086 in 2012 and 952 in 2022. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests; qualitative data provided additional insight.

About two-thirds of 2022 survey respondents were “repeat volunteers.” Volunteer characteristics, motivations and satisfaction remained relatively consistent across the 10-year period. These volunteers were motivated by a set of multiple, interrelated factors which the authors call “community-based altruism” – that is, the desire to help others driven by a sense of community involvement and pride. In both years, more than 90% were satisfied with their volunteer experience. Satisfaction was higher for individuals with certain characteristics such as being a repeat volunteer and volunteering with a group.

This may be the first scholarly article to assess volunteer characteristics, motivations and satisfaction for a major sport event in the same location across multiple years. While it focused on a three-day running event in a midwestern city in the United States, the approach and findings may be applicable to sport event volunteers in other contexts.

This study aims to explore the legacy potential of the FIFA Women’s World Cup (FWWC) 2015, for the host communities across Canada.

The mixed-methods study included a link to an online anonymous survey being sent to all volunteers at the FWWC that explored their prior volunteering experience, motivations for volunteering, perceived skill development and future volunteering intentions. Documents were reviewed, and key stakeholders were interviewed.

The results support previous research that mega-sport event (MSE) volunteers are typically older females with prior volunteering experience. Those most likely to indicate they wanted to volunteer more are younger volunteers without prior volunteering experience. While legacy was discussed as a desired outcome, this was not operationalised through strategic human resource strategies such as being imbedded in the position descriptions for the volunteer managers.

As this study was conducted in the real-world context of a sport event, the timing of the survey was determined by the organising committee.

Mega sport events typically draw upon existing host-city social and human capital. For future event organising committees planning for and delivering a volunteer legacy may require better strategic planning and leveraging relationships with existing host-city volunteer networks. In the context of a single sport, women’s MSE, multi-venue, multi-province event, greater connection was required to proactively connect younger women for volunteers to their geographic sport and event volunteering infrastructure.

This is the first research of volunteers for the largest women’s mega single-sport event. There are three theoretical contributions of the paper to: the socio-ecological lens, motivational theory of single event MSE and the contribution of social and human capital to understandings of legacy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of sponsorship on companies that supported the 2002 Winter Paralympics. The aim of the study was to find out whether sponsorship was related to positive cumulative abnormal returns on the stocks of selected companies. Specifically, was there a difference between the stock values of the 16 companies (with shares in US markets) that sponsored Paralympic games versus leading competitors that did not? Results indicated that no differences existed between those companies that chose to sponsor Paralympics and their leading competitors at any of the time periods F(1, 30 ) = 1.15, p < .05. These findings were consistent with past studies conducted on sport events for persons without disabilities. Further studies are needed to measure other possible company gains by sponsoring Paralympics.

This chapter coins the term Development through Mega-Events (DME) in order to propose a next step for developing social legacies in accordance with the principle of social development.

This chapter’s argument for DME is developed using quantitative, indicator-based data from the Olympic Games Impact (OGI) study as well as relevant literature from the sub-fields of Sport for Development and Peace and Sport Mega-Events.

We discuss the absence of a baseline understanding of the properties of sport mega-events. Also absent are progressive efforts to achieve sustainability by means other than competition among prospective bidders. We recommend that hosts tie social legacies to public policy objectives that are concomitant with the properties of the sport mega-events. Retrospectively applied, OGI data from 2010 reveals social inclusion as one potential social legacy that reflects the nature of the Olympics and the policy realm in the host region.

This chapter is original work. It would be of interest to potential host communities, policymakers, and researchers.