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Part I
Main Chapters
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1 Legacy of sporting and non-sporting mega event research
What next?
Jason Bocarro, Terri Byers and Libby Carter
Introduction
This chapter provides an overview of current research on legacy and mega-events, reporting and comparing the findings of two systematic reviews of the literature: one on Mega Sporting Events (MSE) and one on Non-Sporting Mega-Events (NSME). By examining the key trends in these two reviews, we identify key strengths and weaknesses of research on mega event legacy and develop recommendations for future research to advance this field of knowledge. To address the question of whether legacy of mega events is ‘fact or fairy tale’, the discussion section of this chapter applies a Critical Realist analysis of the concepts and themes presented in each of the systematic reviews. Our findings reveal that research on mega event legacy, both sporting and non-sporting, has been underpinned by a commercial ideology that perpetuates the justification of mega events through the measurement of legacy. We suggest that legacy in the context of mega events is both fact and fairy tale. On one hand, legacy is very real to governments, nations, and a variety of stakeholders involved in, either the planning or production of legacy or impacted positively and/or negatively through the mega event (e.g., new opportunity, skill development, homeowners who are displaced or business relocation). On the other hand, when we examine the concept of legacy and identify gaps in the literature at a deeper level, we see that legacy as a means to justify mega events, has been the predominant focus of the research, revealing that legacy is a fairy tale, socially constructed, deconstructed, and defined to appeal to a wide range of stakeholders.
The chapter begins with a brief background as to why systematic reviews of sporting and non-sporting mega events are needed. We then briefly explain the methods and research protocol behind the reviews. An overview of the results of each review is presented along with a comparative discussion of the similarities, differences, strengths, and weaknesses of the mega event literature. Finally, suggestions and implications for future research and practice are discussed.
Background and rational for systematic reviews
The rising cost of hosting mega sporting events (MSEs) (Gibson et al., 2014; Madden and Giesecke, 2012), controversies over host government spending (Lundy, 2013; Newman, 2012), allegations of corruption (Broudehoux, 2007; Mason, Thibault, and Misener, 2006), and increased scrutiny by a variety of stakeholders (Hall, 2006), has led to concerns over the sustainability of MSEs (Coakley and Souza, 2013). This has resulted in a significant growth in MSE legacy research, which some have attributed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) mandate in 2000 (Girginov and Hills, 2008) that stipulated hosts produce legacy plans.
Similarly, within mega-events more generally, researchers and policy makers point to these events as having the potential to provide significant economic, environmental, and social benefits (Raj and Musgrave, 2009). For example, mega events are expected to produce non-economic impacts in the form of “cultural legacies, variations to tourism culture and to the community’s national and international perceptions.” (Lamberti, Noci, Guo, and Zhu, 2011, p. 1477). As a more applicable example, legacy impacts of Expos include public museums, art galleries and new department stores for the host city (Roche, 2003). Although legacy has been examined and dissected theoretically and empirically, there has been little consideration of synthesising current knowledge to consider inherent strengths and weaknesses of current approaches as well as the contradictions that may prevent advancing knowledge on the legacy of MEs more generally. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to report the findings of two systematic reviews of the legacy of MEs that examined ME articles with regard to (a) the conceptualisations of legacy, (b) the evidence for legacy, and (c) the evaluation tools used in legacy research.
Methods
Systematic reviews are important in identifying trends, synthesising findings, and setting directions for future research agendas (Jackson, 2004). They are viable strategies for analysing literature focused on inferring generalisations about substantive issues from a set of studies that address these issues (Jackson, 1980). They can be used to provide an objective account and description of the state of a particular body of literature by assessing the quantity of articles published and identifying predominant themes or gaps in existing research and methodologies used in examining specific phenomenon (Floyd, Bocarro, and Thompson, 2008). Systematic reviews include three key activities: (1) identifying and describing the relevant literature, (2) critically appraising the literature in a systematic manner, and (3) bringing the findings together in a coherent synthesis (Gough, Oliver, and Thames, 2012). We conducted a narrative synthesis of the reviewed literature to identify determinants of mega sporting and non-sporting mega event legacies. A descriptive analysis identified the methodology employed, country of origin, and mega sporting event studied. Finally, a content analysis (Babbie, 2012) was used to understand how legacies of mega events were conceptualised, as well as the key findings. Overall, we sought to explore the approaches to studying mega events by identifying various thematic dimensions related to the process and mechanisms behind the legacy of mega events.
Using similar initial search queries to Preuss (2007), our multi-national research team searched ten academic databases (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, CAB Abstracts, ERIC, SciELLO, Science Direct, SCOPUS, SportDiscus, Sociological Abstracts, and Web of Science) using the guidelines developed by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) group (Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff, Altman, and The PRISMA Group, 2009). We searched using variants of the following search terms for the review on mega sporting events: “Mega Sporting Events,” “Mega Sport Events” (with and without hyphen), “Legacy,” and “Legacies.” For the non-sporting review, terms searched included did ‘mega event legacy’, ‘Mega-event legacy’, ‘Mega event legacy’, ‘Mega event legacies’, ‘Mega-event legacies’, and ‘Mega event legacies’. Initial searches for the Mega Sport review resulted in 372 articles. Articles were included if they were published in English or German and if they related to the legacy of mega sporting events (using the definitions of legacy and mega sporting events presented earlier). Filtering for articles based on whether the article was from a peer-reviewed journal or whether the article had relevance to the topic resulted in the elimination of 146 articles. This process resulted in 226 articles being included in our final analysis. Initial searches for the non-sporting review resulted in 171 journal articles. These journals were read to eliminate those with a sporting event focus, leaving only 23 journal articles in total with a sole focus on non-sporting mega events.
In order to synthesise how legacies of mega events have been conceptualised in the literature, we used content analysis methods informed by Hsieh and Shannon (2005) and based on previous studies (Edwards and Matarrita-Cascante, 2011; Floyd et al., 2008). Overall, we sought to explore the body of knowledge around legacy by identifying dimensions of legacy developed in the research. This is a necessary starting point to understanding how scholars have considered legacy and where more research is needed. Through a process of open coding, concepts related to the dimensions of legacy that were identified by each article, were determined by all authors of this paper based on keywords and content. Initial lists of themes were compared, discussed, consolidated, and refined by two authors. Themes were not designed to be mutually exclusive, and articles sometimes incorporated multiple dimensions of legacy.
Trends in legacy research and major findings Sporting events
Narrative synthesis and content analysis of the MSE literature revealed five key findings as illustrated in Table 1.1. Each finding is explained, and the strengths and weakness discussed following the table.
Table 1.1 Five key themes of mega event legacy research 1. Majority of events studied or referred to Olympics and World Cup sporting events. |
2. Imbalance in methods with more conceptual articles than empirical research. |
3. Research tends to narrowly focus on single contexts/types of legacy. |
4. Timeframes used to capture legacy rarely exceeded 5 years. |
5. Empirical studies of economic legacy offer little evidence to support the claim of mega sport events to create economic longevity. |
First, research on legacy of mega events has been dominated by the World Cup and Summer Olympic games. This is unfortunate and a clear weakness of the literature as limited contextual comparisons can be made to understand the factors that affect legacy production. A greater variety and range of mega sporting events would enable some comparison of the effect of size, geographic location, social context, and historical development on legacy production. This is necessary as research strongly indicates that legacy is highly contextual (Preuss, 2015; Roche, 1992).
Our second finding shows there is an imbalance in methods used to investigate legacy. Over half of the research articles were qualitative/conceptual pieces with few data-driven or mixed-method articles. Many articles focus on categories of legacy but offer little empirical verification (except for those focused on measuring economic legacy). This is a significant weakness considering the consensus that legacy is a complex, multidimensional concept (e.g., Girginov and Hills, 2008; Griffiths and Armour, 2013; Horne, 2007), yet few have operationalised this argument and produced empirical data to support and explore the multidimensional nature of legacy and legacy production. For example, conceptual contributions of flexible frameworks and innovative approaches to legacy management exist but are not derived from data of actual legacy processes (e.g., Charlton, 2010; Dickson, Benson, and Blackman, 2011).
The third trend in the literature is that research has tended to examine single contexts and has yet to offer comparative research to explore how context influences legacy production or processes, similarities, and differences between contextual determinants. Many of the articles focused on whether a specific legacy was or was not realised (e.g., does a MSE increase economic returns; does a MSE promote more social capital) but do not reveal the factors that enabled and/or constrained the production of legacy, be these structural or agential. A focus on process is evident in a few articles. This means that research often acknowledges legacy as “all planned and unplanned, positive and negative, tangible and intangible structures created for and by a sport event that remain longer than the event itself” (Preuss, 2007, p. 211) but then only measures or focuses on a portion of that definition in an attempt to understand legacy.
The fourth finding suggests that, although scholars have debated what timeframe constitutes a legacy, the majority of the studies had a timeframe no more than five years after a MSE took place. For example, much of the research that emerged out of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa reported a positive legacy in relation to the nation branding (e.g., Allen, Knott, and Swart, 2013; Knott, Fyall, and Jones, 2015). However, it would be interesting to examine the legacy of the 2010 World Cup in light of the recent FIFA scandal.
Finally, the fifth trend identified that few empirical studies have offered evidence that mega sport events provided significant economic legacies to host cities (e.g., Du Plessis and Venter, 2010; Feddersen, Grotzinger, and Maennig, 2009; Porter and Fletcher, 2008). This has resulted in fewer cities bidding for Mega Sporting Events due to public scepticism on inconsistent economic returns on investment and concern over long-term debt. Even the Summer Olympic Games, arguably the most prestigious Mega Sporting Event, only received five formal bids for the 2020 games. With Budapest recently withdrawing as a host for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, only Paris and Los Angeles are left, resulting in commentators suggesting that the Olympics are “in crisis mode” (e.g., Denver Post, 2017). As Hartman and Zandberg (2015) note, an event needs to be embedded in a larger pre- and post-development programme, articulating a need that goes beyond economic and infrastructure arguments in order to solicit more broad based community support. Our review showed a significant increase in security and surveillance legacies, a facet that Preuss (2015) recommended adding. This leads to some interesting questions. While organisers want a safe event, is this being justified to increase public expenditure on security and surveillance? In other words, is the MSE being used to permanently increase surveillance and security beyond the event itself?
Trends in NSME research and major findings
Narrative synthesis and content analysis of the NSME literature revealed six key findings as illustrated in Table 1.2. Each finding is explained and the strengths and weakness discussed following the table. Although the review of the NSME literature indicates that the mega event non-sporting legacy literature is growing, it also highlights many gaps and limitations that need to be addressed. NSME legacy research is “nascent and incomplete” (Li and McCabe, 2013, p. 398) with a strong focus on impacts rather than the long-term legacy of the event, both positive and negative (Deng, 2012; Li and McCabe, 2013).
Table 1.2 Key themes in non-sporting mega event research 1. NSME research focuses primarily on World Expositions and European Cities of Culture events. |
2. There is a lack of conceptualisation of legacy for NSME contexts, and terms “impact” and “legacy” are used interchangeably and at times incorrectly. |
3. The main type of legacy studied is urban renewal, referred to using a wide varie... |
