The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games stand as the most profitable and arguably the most important event in the history of the modern Olympic movement. Fresh off the back of the financially disastrous Montreal Games of 1976 and the politically controversial Moscow Games of 1980, the Olympic movement returned to the United States for the sixth time in an attempt to salvage the economic viability and global prestige of the Olympics. The Los Angeles Olympics proved to be both provocative and polarizing. On the one hand they have been heralded as an overwhelming, transformative success, ushering the Olympic movement into the modern commercial age. On the other hand, critics have repudiated the Games as a manifestation of commercial excess and a platform for western political and cultural propaganda. In conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the Los Angeles Olympics, this volume examines their legacy. With an international collection of contributing scholars, this volume will span a range of global legacies, including the increasing commercialization of the Games, the changing participation of women, the Communist boycott movement, nationalism and sporting identity, and the modernization and California-cation of the Games. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

2024 marks the 100-year anniversary of the winter sports week festival celebrated in Chamonix in 1924, which is now recognized as the first Olympic Winter Games. As a globally watched quadrennial mega-event, the Winter Olympics is unique from both summer sport festivals and other winter festivals, such as the Winter X Games. This book explores the impacts, issues, and legacies of the past century of the Olympic Winter Games. Grounded in sport history, the chapters in this volume draw on the disciplines of cultural history, diplomatic history, global history, environmental history, and media history to analyze the continued allure of the Winter Olympics, a century after its origin, and in light of the sustained and significant problems facing the Olympic movement. Host cities’ efforts to create positive and lasting legacies are analyzed to highlight the challenges and complexities that have plagued the Olympic movement throughout the last century. The Olympic Winter Games at 100 is essential reading for any researcher, advanced student or scholar with an interest in Olympic Studies, sports development, sport policy and history. The chapters in this book were published as two special issues in The International Journal of the History of Sport.

New Dimensions of Sport in Modern Europe offers new perspectives on European sport history in the ‘long twentieth century’ designed to challenge and deconstruct what might be considered ‘traditional’ or more familiar Euro-centric conceptions and geographies of sport and leisure—especially those deriving from the leading hotbeds of European sport history. This anthology adds to the growing corpus of explorations of sport and leisure in late-modern European history from a variety of countries: France, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovenia. With topics covering several different sports and ranging from sport during empire to mega-events, and sport literature to women’s sport attire, the insights provided by this new body of research demonstrate a greater understanding of the connections between sport and society in Europe throughout the long twentieth century. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

The 1972 Munich Olympics were intended to showcase the New Germany and replace lingering memories of the Third Reich. In this cultural and political history of the Munich Olympics, the authors set these games into both the context of 1972 and the history of the modern Olympiad.

National Identity and Global Sports Events looks at the significance of international sporting events and why they generate enormous audiences worldwide. Focusing on the Olympic Games and the men's football (soccer) World Cup, the contributors examine the political, cultural, economic, and ideological influences that frame these events. Selected case studies include the 1936 Nazi Olympics in Berlin, the 1934 World Cup Finals in Italy, the unique case of the 1972 Munich Games, the transformative 1984 Games in Los Angeles, and the 2002 Asian World Cup Finals, among others. The case studies show how the Olympics and the World Cup Finals provide a basis for the articulation of entrenched and dominant political ideologies, encourage persisting senses of national identity, and act as barometers for the changing ideological climate of the modern and increasingly globalized contemporary world. Through rigorous scholarly analyses, the book's contributors help to illuminate the increasing significance of large-scale sporting events on the international stage.

What remains of a great sporting spectacle after the last race is run or the final match is played? How can the vast expense of mounting such events be justified? What if there is nothing left behind or what if the legacy is negative, a costly infrastructure which is unused or a debt-ridden host city? The Routledge Handbook of Sport and Legacy addresses perhaps the most important issue in the hosting of major contemporary sporting events: the problem of ‘legacy’. It offers a rigorous, innovative and comparative insight into this contested concept from interdisciplinary and practical perspectives. Major events must now have a conscious, credible and defined policy for legacy to meet public expectations. The book provides a comprehensive survey of the various kinds of legacy that can be delivered, as well as a close examination of the potential benefits and practical challenges involved in each. From ‘hard’ legacies, such as stadia and infrastructure, to ‘soft’ legacies including skill development, attitude change and capacity building, the book offers both a historical case study and an innovative strategic management approach, and establishes the limits of what can realistically be achieved in terms of economic, social, cultural, physical and sporting development. The Routledge Handbook of Sport and Legacy includes contributions from world leading scholars and practitioners and features detailed case studies of major sports events from around the world, including the FIFA World Cup and ten Olympics Games from London in 1908 to London 2012. It is invaluable reading for students and researchers working in sport studies, events management, human geography, economics or planning, and an essential reference for any professional engaged in delivering legacy through sport.

Sport has come to have an increasingly large impact on daily life and commerce across the globe. From mega-events, such as the World Cup or Super Bowl, to the early socialization of children into sport, the study of sport and society has developed as a distinctly wide-ranging scholarly enterprise, centered in sociology, sport studies, and cultural, media, and gender studies. In The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society, Lawrence Wenner brings together contributions from the world's leading scholars on sport and society to create the premier comprehensive and interdisciplinary reference for scholars and students looking to understand key areas of inquiry about the role and impacts of sport in contemporary culture. The Handbook offers penetrating analyses of the key ways that today's outsized sport is integrated into the lives of both athletes and fans and increasingly shapes the social fabric and cultural logics across the world. Featuring 85 leading international scholars, the volume is organized into six sections: society and values, enterprise and capital, participation and cultures, lifespan and careers, inclusion and exclusion, and spectator engagement and media. To aid comprehension and comparison, each chapter opens with a brief introduction to the area of research and features a common organizational scheme with three main sections of key issues, approaches, and debates to guide scholars and students to what is currently most important in the study of each area. Written at an accessible level and offering rich resources to further study each topic, this handbook is an essential resource for scholars and students as well as general readers who wish to understand the growing social, cultural, political, and economic influences of sport in society and our everyday lives.

Theory is an essential element in the development of any academic discipline and sport management is no exception. This is the first book to trace the intellectual contours of theory in sport management, and to explain, critique and celebrate the importance of sport management theory in academic research, teaching and learning, and in the development of professional practice. Written by a world-class team of international sport management scholars, each of whom has taken a leading role in developing a particular theory or framework for understanding sport management, the book covers the full span of contemporary issues, debates, themes and functional approaches, from corporate social responsibility and diversity to strategy, marketing and finance. Every chapter explores a key theoretical approach, including an overview of that theory, a discussion of the process of theory development and of how the theory has been employed in research, practice or teaching, and outlines directions for future research in that area. Each chapter includes cases and examples, as well as short illustrative commentaries from people who have used that particular theory in their work, and attempts to highlight the theory-practice links, or gaps, in that area. For a fully-rounded understanding of what sport management is and how it should be studied, taught and practiced, a thorough grounding in theory is essential. The Routledge Handbook of Theory in Sport Management is therefore important reading for all advanced students, researchers, instructors, managers and practitioners working in this exciting field.

This 2nd edition of a highly successful book (published in 2000) provides a comprehensive, critical analysis of the Olympic Games using a multi-disciplinary social science approach. This revised edition contains much new data relating to the Sydney 2000 Games and their aftermath; and preparations for Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Games. The book is broad-ranging and independent in its coverage, and includes the use of drugs, sex testing, accusations of power abuse among members of the IOC, the Games as a stage for political protest, media-related controversies, economic costs and benefits of the Games and historical conflicts between organizers and host communities.