The Four ‘Knowns’ of Sports Mega‐Events

Abstract

This article uses a piece of writing in The Guardian newspaper by the philosopher Slavoj Zizek (’The empty wheelbarrow’, 19 February, p. 23, 2005) about the former US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, as a framework by which to reflect critically on major international sporting events, or sports mega‐events. It suggests that it is an academic’s duty to look critically at the assumptions, beliefs and misrepresentations that are often suppressed, or, perhaps more accurately, repressed, about sports mega‐events. The article is based on an analysis of research and writing about sports mega‐events, some of which offer more comprehensive reviews of the literature. It is argued that in their enthusiasm to host and support sports ‘megas’, politicians, senior administrators of sport, corporate leaders and even some academics may often encourage the pretence that we do not know as much as we do about things that actually form the background to them. Information is used from studies of sports mega‐events that have taken place, or are planned, in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America to illustrate the four ‘knowns’, but the main focus is on the ‘unknown knowns’.

Keywords:

• sports mega‐events
• Olympic Games
• Football World Cup
• impacts
• legacies

Acknowledgements

This article was conceived, shaped and substantially improved following conversations with Mark Lowes, Wolfram Manzenreiter, Dave Whitson, participants at a workshop at the University of Edinburgh funded by the Asia‐Europe Foundation in March 2005, and not least by the very generous and encouraging comments made by anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft. Remaining deficiencies are, as ever, the author’s own. An earlier version of the paper was presented as a keynote contribution to the 2005 Leisure Studies Association annual conference ‘Festivals and Events: Beyond Economic Impacts’, Napier University, Edinburgh, 6–8 July 2005.

Notes

1. These issues include centre–periphery relationships related to governance in world sport (Sugden & Tomlinson, 2002), power relations between nation states, supranational sport associations and the sports business (Butler, 2002), the media–sport–business connection (Jennings & Sambrook, 2000), and the cultural production of ideologies needed to cover emergent fissures when ‘the circus comes to town’ (Horne & Manzenreiter, 2004). See Veal and Toohey (2005) for a substantial bibliography of writing on the Olympic Games that includes some of this research.

2. The Winter Olympic Games is roughly one‐quarter the size of the Summer Games in terms of athletes and events and so some might argue that it is not a true ‘mega’ (Matheson & Baade, 2003). It certainly qualifies as a ‘second order’ major international sports event.

3. Between 1980 and 2000 seven new sports and 79 events were added to the programme of the Summer Olympics. Twenty‐eight sports have featured in the Summer Olympics since 2000, although the rare decision to scale down the number to 26 (removing baseball and softball after the 2008 Olympics) was made in July 2005 (http://www.olympic.org/uk). After 1998 the FIFA World Cup Finals expanded from 24 to 32 football teams.

4. Fairclough describes ‘cultural governance’ as ‘governing by shaping or changing the cultures of the public services, claimants and the socially excluded, and the general population’ (Fairclough, 2000: p. 61). This form of governance has featured in the political system of the United Kingdom for the past 26 years. Cultural governance also ‘implies an increased importance for discourses in shaping the action – managing culture means gaining acceptance for particular representations of the social world, i.e., particular discourses’ (Fairclough, 2000: p. 157). In this respect sport has become a most important feature of government intervention and regulation. This importance has been reflected in a number of initiatives and publications. Thus Tony Blair has continued the style of politics inherited from Margaret Thatcher, and to a lesser degree John Major. The Thatcher Governments between 1979 and 1990, for example, explicitly sought to create an ‘enterprise culture’ in which social and political well‐being would be ensured not by central planning or bureaucracy but through the enterprising activities and choices of autonomous businesses, organisations and people. ‘Enterprise’ was a potent concept because it conveyed not just how organisations should operate but also how individuals should act – with energy, initiative, ambition, calculation and personal responsibility. The enterprising self was thus a calculating self, about her or himself and on her or himself. That the ‘enterprising self’ also appears to be a description of an active sports person is no coincidence. It is not unusual to find a particular kind of figure held up in high esteem at specific historical moments.

5. One of the main problems regarding the assessment of the costs and benefits of mega‐events relates to the quality of data obtained from impact analyses. Economic impact studies often claim to show that the investment of public money is worthwhile in the light of the economic activity generated by having professional sports teams or mega‐events in cities. Yet economic benefits are often expressed in terms of both net income and increased employment, whereas in fact increased employment results from additional income, not as well as. Economic impact assessments of mega‐events also rely on predictions of expenditure by sports tourists, and again research shows that such studies have often been methodologically flawed. The real economic benefit of visitor numbers and spending is often well below that specified because of ‘substitution’, ‘crowding out’ and unrealistic use of the economic ‘multiplier’ factors. Another measure of economic impact – on the creation of new jobs in the local economy – has often been politically driven to justify the expenditure on new facilities and hence the results are equally questionable (see Matheson & Baade, 2003; Crompton, n.d.).

6. A total of 77,400 permanent jobs, income of 2% of South Africa’s GDP and additional income from tax of US$ 550 million (Cornelissen, 2004: p. 1297).

7. Two recent examples of escalating costs and delays in megaprojects in Britain are the re‐building of Wembley Stadium and the new Scottish Parliament building. After Wembley was chosen as the site of the new national stadium in 1997 delays and cost overruns have been a regular feature of the project. Initially costed at £185 million, work on the site was due to start in 1999 by when the stadium was expected to cost £475 million. In fact work did not get underway until September 2002 when the figure had reached £752 million. At the time of writing (October 2005) the costs are put at £757 million, making it the most expensive sports stadium in the world. It is still not certain however when it will be open for business. Such was the outcry about the spiralling costs associated with the building of the new Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood in Edinburgh that an inquiry was established. Originally estimated at between £10 and £40 million in the devolution legislation passed in 1997, costs rose to £55 million (1998), £109 million (1999), £195 million (2000) and £374 million (2003). The building was finally opened in 2004 at a cost of £431 million (http://www.holyroodinquiry.org).

8. The phrase ‘white elephant’ is purported to derive from the practice of the King of Siam (modern Thailand) to deal with threats to his rule by giving these sacred and therefore purely symbolic, but expensive, animals to rivals. The cost of maintaining the animal was more than they were worth.