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TSE Commentator

March / April 2010
Is the term 'legacy' used too often as justification for spending too much public money on major sports events?
 Yes       No

Our Opinion

In our opinion yes!

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The term 'legacy' implies that a city hosting a major sports event plans on spending time and resources making sure that something is left behind after this major (and probably very expensive) event. But, that is not how smart sports event cities operate today. Their strategies are not focused on organising a single major event but on staging a series of events over many years, building from one event to another and constantly presenting events which are attractive to their citizens, investors, tourists, etc.

These cities would, of course, like their events to leave something behind, but they are focused on building up to the next event in a strategically, well-defined mix of project (the event) and process (the on-going generation of benefits to the city). The impact of the events and the performance curve of the host city steadily move forward. Therefore, 'legacy' can never be the focus of such a strategy.

Conversely, sports event organisers should not be afraid of facing up to the costs of these events. With the right strategy, there is no need to justify costs by trying to emphasise a 'legacy'. Any host city that is focusing too much on the 'legacy' of an event likely suffers from spending a lot of money to host an event without thinking about its long-term implications for the city.

-TSE Consulting

Introducing a four-step approach for successful bidding and hosting

TSE has just published its second book called 'Developing a winning sports event strategy: a four-step approach for successful bidding and hosting.' Here, we have taken an excerpt from the introduction of the book that outlines our approach to developing a sports event strategy.

Lars Haue-Pedersen Managing Director

TSE offers practical tools to help you improve your management and communication skills.

Your Opinion

Is the term 'legacy' used too often as justification for spending too much public money on major sports events?

no

24%



yes

76%



Your Comments

Posted By: Nigel Rushman of Rushmans | 2010-05-05 12:44:58

Often there is talk of the 'human legacy'. The idea that each event would train a cadre of event specialists is more often than not unrealisable. There is often not...
Posted By: Sieh Kok Chi | 2010-04-30 23:49:14

A simple definition of Legacy is "material or immaterial things handed down by predecessor". Thus major events organisers should list down the legacies one by one, the benefits from...
Posted By: Paul Henderson | 2010-04-29 07:28:59

The problem is that the politicians use this and then load their extraneous political agendas on the back of sport escalating the cost and therefore as a percentage of the...
Posted By: Phil Savage | 2010-04-29 07:00:34

It's a loaded question but the reality is that the cost of staging events mean direct economic benefits don't balance the equation. Legacy in all its forms - tourism, place...