One-off sport events are out of the ordinary and can trigger economic, tourism/commercial, urban regeneration, social, psychological, political, and environmental impacts, and thus affect local communities in a variety of ways.
These impacts can be positive or negative which lead to positive or negative outcomes. Most of the research thus far has focused on economic and tourism impacts of mega sport events, such as the Olympic Games or the World Cup soccer, which are generally hosted in large, cosmopolitan cities.
The impact of smaller sized events on smaller and medium-sized cities is, however, not so clear.
Mega sport events have a tremendous global reach, with both global and local impacts. The negative outcomes for mega sport events for local residents are found to be more prominent than the positive ones, mainly due to the costs of staging these types of events, which greatly surpass their revenues.
If that was not the case, commercial organizations, rather than public authorities, would be eager to go after these events.
Smaller sized events do not have this global reach.
It is, for instance, highly unlikely that the world is going to know that Windsor will be hosting these FINA Championships in 2016. Even most Ontarians and Canadians may not be aware of the fact that this event will be hosted in their province or country.
These championships will receive huge local coverage but in media outlets outside this region, FINA 2016 will only take up a small section in the sports coverage.
Thus claiming that FINA 2016 will put Windsor on the world map, might be a little over the top. That being said, these smaller types of events may have the potential to impact the local community in a way that the positives outweigh the negative ones, especially when the local economy and businesses are not running at full capacity.
Events like FINA 2016 need to be properly leveraged in order to maximize their potential ability of generating positive outcomes.
This requires a concerted strategy of setting goals and developing strategies and tactics to attain these goals, and measure the outcomes.
Moreover, developing a well thought through event portfolio, including a variety of events, will assist in creating sustainable benefits from hosting events in Windsor-Essex County.
PROF. MARIJKE TAKS, Windsor