Investment in sporting infrastructure in cities over the past 20 years was not primarily aimed at getting the local community involved in sport, but was instead aimed at attracting tourists, encouraging inward investment and changing the image of the city. The first example of this new strategy was seen in Sheffield with the investment of £147 million in sporting facilities to host the World Student Games of 1991. More recently, Manchester spent over £200 million on sporting venues in order to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games, with a further £470 million expenditure on other non-sport infrastructure investment in Sportcity in east Manchester. In the British context, most of the cities following this strategy of using sport for economic regeneration have been industrial cities, not normally known as major tourist destinations. The drivers of such policies were the need for a new image and new employment opportunities caused by the loss of their conventional industrial base. This article analyses the justification for such investments in sport in cities and assesses the evidence for the success of such strategies.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether attending one-off sport events might inspire audiences to increase their participation in sport or recreational physical activity. Design/methodology/approach -Primary data collection was undertaken with spectators aged 16 and over at three major sport events held in the UK in 2010. The findings are based on an aggregate sample of 2,312 respondents. Findings -Around two-thirds of respondents reported that their event experience had inspired them to increase their participation in sport or physical activity. The inspiration effect varied according to age and respondents' predisposition to sport. The main factors that caused the inspiration were linked directly to the athletes and the competition. The provision of information about opportunities to undertake sport was found to be the most important lever to convert inspiration into participation. Originality/value -Evidence of the impact of major sport events on mass participation is relatively scarce and inconclusive. In order for any "trickle-down" effect to occur, it would be reasonable to assume that audiences would first be inspired by their event experience. It is this basic sense of inspiration that the research aimed to measure.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to focus on the methodologies used to evaluate major events. It aims to establish the most practically-relevant methodology for analysing the economic impact of routinely-held major events and to identify the key methodological issues for future consideration. Design/methodology/approach -The paper draws on empirical research undertaken by the Sport Industry Research Centre using the direct expenditure approach (DEA). Findings -The DEA is the most pragmatic and cost-effective method for evaluating the economic impact of medium-sized major events. However, the approach is only as robust as the quality of data utilised to derive estimates. Key emerging methodological issues are measuring attendance, consideration of direct first-round leakage and treatment of organisational spend and event surplus/deficit. Research limitations/implications -The DEA limits the measurement of economic impact to first-round spending associated with an event. It is not suitable for measuring large-scale mega-events that require a more holistic and advanced method of event evaluation. Originality/value -The paper considers the methods used to evaluate events in the context of balancing academic rigour with the everyday practical realities and constraints facing event organisers and researchers. It discusses existing and emerging methodological considerations and techniques for dealing with these. The paper will be of particular interest to researchers and practitioners from the event industry carrying out or commissioning economic impact studies.
Ms D., a 76 year-old woman with a slowly progressive bilateral parietal lobe degeneration, showed an unusual variant of misreaching as yet unreported. When required to reach to a target in extrafoveal vision, she slavishly reached straight to the foveal fixation point instead ("magnetic misreaching"). Three dimensional recordings of limb movements to foveal and extrafoveal targets revealed that her reach endpoints were determined by the place she was looking, independent of the distance between target and fixation point. The sign was present in both hands. Magnetic misreaching differs from motor misbehaviours which follow frontal lobe damage. The neuropsychological and behavioural profile of Ms D., coupled with neuroimaging evidence suggest that magnetic misreaching is a manifestation of parietal lobe dysfunction.
Blindsight is the ability of some cortically blind patients to discriminate visual events presented within their field defect. We have examined a fundamental aspect of visual processing, namely the detection of spatial structures presented within the field defect of 10 cortically blind patients. The method outlined is based on the detection of high-contrast stimuli and is effective in flagging a 'window of detection' in the spatial frequency spectrum, should it exist. Here we report on the presence of a narrowly tuned psychophysical spatial channel optimally responding to frequencies less than 4 cycles/ degrees in eight out of 10 patients tested. The two patients who did not show any evidence of blindsight appear to have intact midbrain structures, but have lesions that extend from the occipital cortex to the thalamus. In addition, we have recorded subjective reports of awareness of the visual events in each trial. Detection scores of eight blindsight patients were subsequently subdivided based on the subjective reports of awareness. It appears that the psychophysical spatial channel-mediating responses in the absence of any awareness of the visual event have a narrower frequency response than those involved when the patients report some awareness of the visual event. The findings are discussed in relation to previous reports on the incidence of blindsight and performance on tasks involving spatial processing.
This paper examines the hidden financial benefits that non-elite events are capable of delivering for host cities. The paper provides examples of how mass participation (and other non-elite) events can generate substantial economic impacts comparable to and, in some cases greater than, those associated with elite events. Cost-effectiveness of mass participation events, relative to major elite sports events, is discussed.
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