Mega-handbook on mega-events: The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts

Christian Tolstrup Jensen
Dept. of Sport Sciences, Malmö University

Research handbook on major sporting events is an anthology with no less than 56 chapters. The considerable number of chapters would make a review with a focus on the individual contributions a rather boring read, and leave little space for the more interesting question: does it make sense to consult one handbook instead of reading 56 individual papers? Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

As a start, the editors state that their aim is to present “diverse perspectives”, “challenge perceptions” and “contribute to the ongoing dialogue of sporting event issues” (p. xxiv).  Altogether achieving these aims should “push the frontier on major sporting events ahead” (p. xxv) and present “state-of-the-art” for the reader (p. 4). To fulfil its objects, the editors have separated the book into three parts of which the second has 5 subsections. The three parts are sorted chronologically starting with chapters on the bidding process followed by the production and the impact respectively.

Each part and subsection follows loosely the same structure. At first, the chapters are often literature reviews or take a more general approach to a topic followed by more specific case studies, a structure that generally works well (if the reader actually reads the book or a section from start to finish). For instance, in part I, chapters 2 and 4 do a good job setting the scene for major sport event bidding, just as chapters 9, 10 and 11 work well as introductions to sport event stakeholders and their environments in part 2, subsection 1. Subsection 3 in Part 2 is a bit of an exception as its overview of the social, environmental and financial challenges (ch. 23–27) stays rather general and only features one case study on these challenges (ch. 28), whereas chapter 29, the last chapter in the section, is left as a bit of an appendix as its (very relevant) topic (co-hosting) is not as interlinked with the other chapters as they were.

Readers experienced in the field will probably find links anyway or revel in the diversity, but I am not sure a student will have the same experience and thus runs the risk of getting lost.

Such an example of a chapter that is left a bit on the side exemplifies one of the book’s weaknesses as it is not always the case that the texts fit as well as they do in the aforementioned section. Instead, at times, thematical jumps make the book a bit confusing, as one goes directly from for instance a study on the home advantage in the Olympics in general (ch. 6) to a description of New Zealand’s bidding structure, whose short length and concrete content are laudable but with very little discussion of its wider relevance, position in the research field  and thus links to other chapters (ch. 7). Readers experienced in the field will probably find links anyway or revel in the diversity, but I am not sure a student will have the same experience and thus runs the risk of getting lost. If the book is used in teaching, the teacher should be prepared to do some curating, for example by pointing out to the students which chapters work well as introductions and which that are more specific cases, which can be hard to judge from reading the chapter titles (hopefully the review can also be a help here).

Subsection 4 on marketing and promotion returns to the well-known structure and starts off with some good overview articles and sound theoretical and global outlooks (ch. 31, 32, 34). The remaining section then presents various more specific perspectives on the promotion on sport events mainly from a Qatari and Middle eastern perspective supplemented with South African cases in chapters. 37–41. While I appreciate the nuanced (and for me provocative depiction of Qatar 2022 in chapters 35 and 36), non-Eurocentric perspectives, the section risks leaving an uninitiated reader with the impression that such promotion is mainly an issue in non-western countries and mainly a question of nation branding rather than city branding. Such a blank spot might be a consequence of basing the book on chapters written externally (in contrast to letting a group of authors or just one write all the texts). The former approach allows for diversity in perspectives and expertise but also that some spots remain blank if no one writes a text on them. Again, someone with experience in the field sees these spots, the student perhaps not.

Part 2 concludes with subsection 5’s introduction of new themes in sport event research, such as disasters and public health. Good overview chapters serve as introductions to the section with solid attention to terminology and practice, making this subsection well-balanced too (e.g., ch. 42, 43). The section’s concluding chapters on doping (ch. 45, 46) are interesting too, but focus their discussion more on doping in elite sport generally, for which major sport events are indeed important but also rather passive arenas.

Part 3 starts with some introducing chapters (ch. 47–50) on the general problems with regard to methods when evaluating impacts and how one can attempt to enhance the events’ economic and social impacts, followed by case studies of IOC and impacts in Australia, Scotland, hosts of the Winter Olympics and Hungary (ch. 50, 51, 52, 55 and 56). Part 3 however does not stick to the structure, making for some drastic changes in level of abstraction by mixing the cases with chapters with more general perspectives. Chapter 53, for instance, takes a theoretical approach to the question of sport participation development and chapter 54 reviews the literature on the trickledown effect.

These paragraphs have hopefully given an impression of how the book and the papers are usually constructed and this construction’s advantages. It should however be noted that not all papers fit these categories. Some (e.g., ch. 13, 14, 15, 27) are more interested in theory and conceptual developments/discussion while others do not apply a “research methodology” as strictly as it is common for scientific paper – although the editors see this as fundamental to the volume (p. 3). Chapter 20 is for instance very concrete and direct in its suggestions for improvement for Commonwealth Games making it a very different reading experience. Similarly, chapter 26 focuses on practical change and is not set up as a common academic study, but rather as a starting point for discussion. Some might be disturbed by the inclusion of such texts in a research handbook, but for me they underline the intimate connection between practise and sport event research. More problematic is that some texts are just about 6 pages of actual text, which leaves little room a proper argument especially when the text also includes a short case study.

Conclusion

In general, reading the book provides insight into the classic themes of sport events such as bidding, the relevance and evaluation of events’ economic, environmental and social impacts, the global relevance that sport events have and not least their political dimensions. It is also laudable how the book puts topics into the spotlight, as the editors highlight, such as crime, law and corruption, which not always feature prominently at conferences but reflect important issues in society. As a historian, it was also interesting for me to read several good discussions on both historical and more recent developments relevant for sport events (e.g., in ch. 1, 3, 6, 12, 33 and 55). The editors’ initial suggestion that “major sport events” should be defined on a relative scale (p. 1), does not however really mark the content of book as many studies focus on the classics: the FIFA World cup for men and the Summer Olympics. Also, the few (and often simple) quantitative studies in the book do not really reflect my impression that more advanced quantitative studies are dominating, for instance when it comes to impact studies.

Coming back to my initial question, I conclude that the book does make the whole bigger than the sum of its parts, thanks to its thorough index, the introductions/abstracts of the chapters in the beginning and the author biographies. There the reader can get a very good impression of the most important themes in current sport event research, suggestions for future, understudied areas (beyond the suggestions made by the editors on p. 15) and a who-is-who in the field. In the index, for instance, “volunteers” suddenly appears as a hugely discussed topic, way beyond what the two dedicated texts would otherwise suggest. Similarly, “leverage” and “legacies”, two foundational terms when discussing event impacts, but which are not addressed explicitly in any text, also show their importance through the many references to them in the index.

That said, it is also important to note that the ideal reader of this book already has some knowledge in the field. The sometimes quickly changing of topics and lack of explicit introduction chapters to foundational concepts such as leverage and legacies would make the book on its own a challenging read for students.

Copyright © Christian Tolstrup Jensen 2024