An “East Asian Era” has been unfolding in the hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and other sports and nonsport mega-events. 1 At the time of writing, Beijing is preparing to act as host for the next Winter Games in 2022, following PyeongChang’s hosting of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic
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Mobile Mega-Event Expertise in an “East Asian Era”
John Horne and Yoshio Takahashi
What Are the Benefits of Hosting a Sporting Mega Event? Evidence From Industrial Firms in China
Ted Hayduk and Johan Rewilak
Research on the economic impact of sporting mega events (SMEs), such as the Olympic Games and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup, is extensive ( Hotchkiss, Moore, & Zobay, 2003 ; Matheson, 2008 ; Szymanski, 2010 ) and has predominantly focused on economic
Toward a Theory of Sportswashing: Mega-Events, Soft Power, and Political Conflict
Jules Boykoff
of intricate financialized accumulation modes ( Sahr, 2022 ), resource wars ( Van der Ploeg, 2018 ), and intractable debt traps ( Dienst, 2011 )—sports mega-events have emerged as an apt site for soaking up surplus capital, stoking popularity with restive domestic publics, and rejuvenating
Marching in the Glory: Experiences and Meanings When Working for a Sport Mega-Event
Xiaoyan Xing and Laurence Chalip
Sport mega-event organizing committees have three uniquely challenging characteristics: They grow rapidly; they are temporary; they are accountable for event symbolisms. Effects of these characteristics are examined via participant observation and in-depth interviews with twelve lower-level employees of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) two years before the Beijing Olympics. Four themes about their working lives were identified: The daily work is mundane; BOCOG is bureaucratic; privilege has its privileges; my immediate working environment nurtures me. The mega-event context was also important; workers described it using: The Olympics are great and grand; the Olympics are valuable for China; the Olympics illustrate the challenges that China faces in the 21st century; BOCOG is uniquely high profile; BOCOG helps us to understand Chinese society. Employees used four themes to describe the coping strategies they applied to manage the challenges of working for the organizing committee: I have to confront or adjust; my work at BOCOG allows me to develop myself; working at BOCOG represents a passionate life with idealism; I get to be part of history. Findings suggest that social support, the symbolic significance of the event, and learning through event work mitigate the stresses of working to host a mega-event. Future work should examine the workers’ lives longitudinally over the lifespan of an organizing committee to delineate the dynamics of meanings and experiences in mega-event work.
Predicting Changing Media Use Patterns via Mega Events: An Examination of Multi-Screen Viewing During the 2016 Rio Olympics
Tang Tang and Roger Cooper
Mega events, such as the Olympics, provide a unique context and valuable opportunity to study changing media use patterns in today’s convergent environment. This study examined how and why audiences watched the 2016 Rio Olympics across media, and found that while TV was still the dominant platform for mega-event viewing, audiences tended to seek alternative content and niche sports on computers, and primarily used mobile devices to get a second-screen experience during the Rio Games. In addition, findings suggest that multiscreen Olympics viewing was not exclusively determined by individual characteristics and psychological needs. Structures, media use routine, and social contexts played a big (though maybe less obvious) role in driving screen choice.
The Economic Benefits of Mega Events: A Myth or a Reality? A Longitudinal Study on the Olympic Games
Chengli Tien, Huai-Chun Lo, and Hsiou-Wei Lin
This study concerns research related to mega events, such as the Olympic Games, to determine whether the economic impact of the Olympic Games on the host countries is significant. This study uses two methods, panel data analysis and event study, to test hypotheses based on the data from 15 countries that have hosted 24 summer and winter Olympic Games. The results indicate that the economic impact of the Olympic Games on the host countries is only significant in terms of certain parameters (i.e., gross domestic product performance and unemployment) in the short term. These findings provide decision makers with comprehensive and multidimensional knowledge about the economic impact of hosting a mega event and about whether their objectives can be realized as expected.
The Cameo Effect of Host Country and the Transitory Mega-Event: Patterns of Effect on Sponsorship Evaluation for Sport Tourists and Residents
John Nadeau, Norm O’Reilly, Erdinc Cakmak, Louise Heslop, and Sonja Verwey
In this paper, the authors address a literature gap with regard to sponsorship outcomes of mega-events and their host countries. This paper is about research that investigates the interrelatedness of three important images—host country, mega-event, and sponsor images—from the perspective of a cameo appearance building on the sponsorship and brand placement literature. It is based on the premise that the host city makes a cameo appearance during a mega-event for sport tourists while the event itself makes a cameo appearance for residents of the host country. The results indicate that mega-events can have a transitory influence, and that cameo effects exist, but that the patterns of relationships are different for sport tourists and residents.
Sporting Shanghai: Haipai Cosmopolitanism, Glocal Cityness, and Urban Policy as Mega-Event
Lin Yu, Hanhan Xue, and Joshua I. Newman
over 850 other major national-level events. In turn, by 2015 the value of the sports industry in Shanghai had increased to 42 billion RMB (about 6.1 billion USD) ( Ping, 2015 ). In describing the function and form of such major sporting events—often referred to as “mega-events”—sport sociologists tend
The Sexual and Gender Politics of Sport Mega-events: Roving Colonialism
Martha Saavedra
By Heather Sykes. Taylor & Francis, 2017, Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY. In their book, The sexual and gender politics of sport mega-events: Roving colonialism , Heather Sykes and contributors Manal Hamzeh and Salima Bhimani document and analyze activism focused on neo-liberal and securitized
Physical Activity Among Urban-Living Middle-Aged and Older Japanese During the Build-Up to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games: A Population Study
Michael Annear, Tetsuhiro Kidokoro, and Yasuo Shimizu
Olympic and Paralympic Games are often referred to as mega events in recognition of their global reach, spectator interest, high cost, and potentially transformative societal impacts ( Müller, 2015 )—a label that is also applied to Football and Rugby world cups. It has been theorized that mega events have
