Impacts of the Olympic Games as mega-events

By M. Malfas, Elena Theodoraki, B. Houlihan. 2004

268 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Mega sporting events can be defined by their impacts and complexity in organisation and delivery. This paper reviews the literature on the features of such events and, drawing particular examples from recent Olympic Games, it identifies the nature and extent of their impacts on the host country and community. These range from the political, social, economical, physical and cultural and can be negative as well as positive. The paper concludes that while the prospect of economic growth is the driving force behind bids for hosting the Olympic Games, the legacies that follow their hosting are difficult to quantify, prone to political interpretation and multifaceted.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2faa9f47cb4fcf1d4f923e2c20f1f89b5925374b

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Citations in the corpus

An Introduction to the Sociology of Sports Mega-Events 1 (2006, background): “…representatives of the media easily outnumber the athletes – in Sydney in 2000 there were 16,033 (press and broadcasting) reporters and during the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City in 2002 there were 8730 reporters covering the performances of 2399 athletes (Malfas et al., 2004: 211).”
Impact of Trust on Local Residents’ Mega-Event Perceptions and Their Support (2017, background): “While some studies have concluded that “economic benefits are the prime motive” for hosting these events (Malfas, Theodoraki, and Houlihan 2004, 218), others argued that positive social impacts such as community pride and international recognition are viewed as more important by residents of host…”