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Abstract
The hosting of major sporting events, often linked to elite sports development systems, has become a key determinant of urban and state promotion as well as related policy objectives, notably around enhancing levels of physical activity, and stimulating the social, economic and environmental regeneration of host cities – commonly now referred to as ‘legacy’. What is noticeable about such major event bidding documents and subsequent market analysis and government rhetoric regarding the rationale for, and likely successes of, hosting major sporting events is the adoption of a set of uncritical but standardized justifications regarding the benefits that such events will bring to the host community and nation. Commonly, it is argued that such legacy will ensue simply because it has been evident at prior events around the globe. Within this context and with specific reference to the summer Olympiad to be held in London in 2012, this article unpacks some of the difficulties that occur when mega-event policy is transferred, often uncritically from city to city and nation to nation. After situating this article within the context of ongoing political science debates regarding the efficiency and efficacy of ‘policy transfer’, especially within recent and contemporary UK sports policy context, this article focuses upon how a number of paradoxes have emerged through attempts to deliver Olympic legacy that highlights a number of shortcomings, especially with regard to financial and democratic accountability, and the likelihood of regeneration legacies that benefit local people.
Notes
1. The aim here is to outline the broad issues surrounding sports-based policy transfer. For a more detailed analysis of this phenomena in relation to elite sports development in advanced economies, see Houlihan et al. (Citation2010).
2. Cited in Houlihan (Citation2009, p. 54).
3. For example, Houlihan (Citation2005, p. 181) suggested that, in specific relation to UK sport policy, there appears to have been a retreat from the ‘sport for all’ policy discourse to ‘one which emphasises the demonstration effects of elite success as catalyst for increasing participation’ (see also Green Citation2004, Collins Citation2010).
4. The justification given by Government's for wishing to host major sporting events often cuts across a number of different policy priorities but are often hybridized under the banner of legacy. In this article the focus is upon the legacies associated with urban regeneration that includes the impact of economic developments and infrastructure upgrading as well as less tangible impacts such as enhanced sporting participation rates.
5. Elements of this section draw from a variety of written work by the author on the relationship between, policy transfer, risk and mega-events (see, e.g. Coaffee and Johnston Citation2007).
6. The most dramatic example given is that of the Sydney Opera House, which opened in 1973 and where the cost of construction was no less than fifteen times greater than the figure specified in the initial budget.
7. See Coaffee (2008) for a more detailed description.
8. It should however be noted that some Summer Games are seen as successful in economic terms. According to the IOC (2010, p. 3/4), 10 years after the 1996 Games in Atlanta, a USD 5 billion economic impact had been shown and ‘more than USD 1.8 billion in hotels, office buildings, high-rise residential buildings and entertainment venues had risen in the downtown area … (and) Atlanta had nearly 280 more international businesses than prior to the Games’.
9. Game Plan also justified its approach to major sport development projects through examples of a series of sport stadium developments which had been spatially planned to deliver regenerative benefits to the local community. Drawing on examples provided by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, Game Plan cited a number of examples of the regeneration benefits associated with the relocation of professional football clubs (p. 31). Moreover, it was argued that a flexible planning system was vital to such success: ‘if regeneration is intended as an explicit pay-off from hosting a mega-event, then it must underpin the whole planning process to ensure that maximum benefit is achieved for the investment’ (p. 67). These developments utilized planning legislation called section 106 agreements – a type of planning obligation which can be used by local planning authorities following the granting of planning permission (normally major developments) to secure community infrastructure in order to meet the needs of residents in new developments, or to mitigate the impact of new developments on existing facilities.
10. Cited in Culf and Higgns (2007).
11. This reallocation of cultural funding has been made possible, or at least easier, by the strategic alignment of culture-related funding streams when the DCMS was established in 1997 under attempts to modernize government and develop more holistic and integrated polity (Coaffee 2008).