This report from the Danish Institute for Sports Studies/Play the Game has the objective to obtain a greater understanding of the sporting legacy of stadiums built for or having undergone major renovations to host a major international sporting event. Several brand new stadiums have been built or renovated for specific events, but the legacy of such stadiums and to what extent they are used after the event are in many cases unclear. The study detailed in this report was conducted in order to assess the sustainability of stadiums built for major international sports events in terms of sporting and financial sustainability. Do substantial investments in stadiums for mega events lead to significant utilisation after the event? Is it possible for all stadiums to be utilised to a higher extent after the major sporting event? Is there a complex of general problems present, and if so: How and where are they occurring? How can we avoid the potential problems? Are there any model examples? And why have they succeeded? The overall results presented in the report allow us to answer at least some of the questions related to stadiums that have been constructed or undergone major renovations due to a major sporting event.
Type: Reports
Last year, in a milestone development that flew beneath the radar of national media, flag football surpassed tackle football as the most commonly played form of the game among children ages 6 to 12, according to annual survey data by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. Last week, the LA84 Foundation, a major grant-maker to youth sports programs in Southern California, announced that it would no longer fund programs that offer tackle football before age 14. Today, our Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program releases a 27-page white paper that explores the consequences of this trend continuing. Eight months in the making, it asks: What if flag football becomes the standard way of playing the sport until high school? What are the implications for the sport, its stakeholders, and most importantly, the children who play the game?
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In this report from the Centre for Sport Policy Studies at the University of Toronto, Peter Donnelly and Michele K. Donnelly have analysed gender equality in sport using the case of the 2012 London Olympics.
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This review surveys the sociological work on race and sport over the past 50 years. It begins by outlining the importance of C.L.R. James’s book Beyond a Boundary as a foundational text for the critical sociology of race and sport. Two paradigms of research on race and sport are sketched: the critical and the functionalist-evolutionary. The article then reviews the major contributions to the study of race and sport from three areas, namely mainstream American sociology, the sociology of race, and the sociology of sport, focusing primarily on the research published since 2000. The article concludes by looking at future directions of work in the field, suggesting that although sport remains marginal to mainstream American sociology and the insights of scholars such as James remain overlooked, the best work on race and sport will continue to emerge from the subfield of sport studies.
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Five years ago this spring, Project Play was launched. We invited more than 80 leaders from sport, health, media, philanthropy and other sectors to the Aspen Institute’s campus in Aspen, Colo., to take measure of how well children were being served through sports and to consider ways to improve the state of play. The impetus was a growing sense that youth sports had become a runaway train, untethered to the needs of many youth and communities. Obesity rates were climbing, as were the percentage of kids who were physically inactive. Earlier than ever, children were being burned out, pushed out or locked out from sports. No national plan had been developed on how to collectively address these problems.
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Our fourth annual report is the latest snapshot of how well stakeholders are serving children and communities through youth sports. The report includes the most recent youth sports participation data and coaching metrics from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association; new survey results of youth sports parents from the Aspen Institute and Utah State University; exclusive analysis of 40+ key developments from the past year; and grades in each of Project Play’s eight “plays” or areas of shared opportunity. State of Play 2019 also identifies resources and campaigns that national sport organizations are creating to grow youth sports participation. State of Play 2019 was released in September 2019.
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THE NEEDS OF MOST CHILDREN ARE NOT BEING MET. Start with the need to be active: fewer than half of children ages 6 to 11 meet the U.S. Surgeon General’s recommendation for engaging in at least 60 minutes of moderate physical activity most days of the week.4 One way to address that deficit is through sport activity, especially team sports, as children often enjoy playing in groups. But fewer of them are doing so now than just a few years ago. The federal government does not track sports participation rates among preteens, but according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), which does, 40 percent of kids played team sports on a regular basis in 2013, down from 44.5 percent in 2008. Further, only 52.2 percent took part in those activities even once during the year, down from 58.6 percent.5
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In a research Report on gender equality at the London 2012 Olympics, we made an incidental statement about sex testing in the form of naked inspections of women athletes at Olympic Games in the 1960s. In stating this, we were following in the footsteps of numerous academics and journalists who had made a similar assertion. The Report was generally received favourably, including by Anita DeFrantz, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and chair of the IOC Women and Sports Commission since 1995. However, she pointed out that there was no evidence that naked inspections were carried out at Olympic Games. We accepted Ms. DeFrantz’s challenge and, following additional research and consultations, discovered that she is correct. Naked inspections were carried out in the 1960s by the international track and field federation (IAAF), and at other multi-sport events such as the Commonwealth Games and the Pan American Games, but not at Olympic Games. We have corrected the original Report, and we are grateful to Ms. DeFrantz for drawing our attention to the error; we have taken this opportunity to set the record straight. However, our original critique of sex testing as yet another humiliating aspect of sport for women athletes still stands, and the International Olympic Committee are by no means innocent in this process
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By the late 1990s Canada had produced one of the most progressive examples in the world of a policy to deal with harassment and abuse in sport. Sport Canada’s funding regulations required all national sport organizations (NSOs) in receipt of federal funding to have a policy: (a) to deal appropriately with incidents of harassment and abuse; (b) to have designated arm’s length trained Harassment Officers (one male and one female) with whom athletes and/or their parents and others could raise queries, and to whom they could address complaints without fear of reprisal from coaches or other sport officials; and (c) to report annually their compliance with the policy in order to receive that funding.
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Rights Through Sport: Mapping “Sport for Development and Peace” Edit Sign provides an overview of the actors involved in SDP and outlines how their work incorporates human rights principles.