Acceso usuarios
Madeleine Orr, Nigel Jarvis
Event organizers and city officials often justify the high costs of hosting an event by highlighting its legacies. Legacies are a topic of contentious discourse among event researchers, over definition, measurement, and significance. The bid for the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games highlighted sport legacies as a priority. Thirteen semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted with organizers, city officials, and members of the Toronto sports community. These interviews were analyzed using a thematic coding method. The degree of familiarity with "event legacies" among respondents varied, as did the definitions they offered. Multiple positive legacies were highlighted, most frequently: new or improved sports facilities and equipment (11/13 respondents), increased awareness of sport and sport opportunities (9/13), and inspiration factor (7/13). No respondent named negative legacies. Two major themes emerged: 1) there is no universal understanding of legacies as a term or concept; and 2) organizers are biased when asked about legacies, favoring the positive, and ignoring the negative.
