Maximising the social impacts of major events

The Approach

As part of Doncaster’s Local Delivery Pilot work funded by Sport England, researchers from the School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management, and the Carnegie School of Sport have been working with Doncaster Council, their partners and local communities since 2018 to understand how major events can help address local issues and support sustainable opportunities for creating happier and healthier communities.

To date, this work has examined the 2018 and 2019 Tour de Yorkshire cycle races, the 2019 UCI Road World Cycling Championships, and the 2020 Women’s Rugby Union Roses World Cup. Our learning has been cumulative, with recommendations from one event being implemented in the next. It has also been collaborative. For example, during the 2018 Tour de Yorkshire, we worked with 18 residents across six communities to conduct over 200 resident-to-resident surveys and three focus groups to understand how the event affected personal wellbeing, civic pride, physical activity levels and community engagement.

The Impact

Our findings have led to innovations in event delivery such as microgrants to support the hosting of community events and physical activity opportunities alongside major events. Our work has also addressed event inequalities. During the 2018 Tour de Yorkshire cycle race we identified that a lack of suitable spectating facilities prevented a range of community members, including school children, older people (including care home residents) and disabled people, from engaging with the event. In 2019, spectator facilities were re-designed, and four community organisations were supported with microgrants to provide comfortable environments for these groups to participate in the event.

Our work has also identified that the design of physical activity opportunities requires greater consideration of individual circumstances and economic, cultural and environmental barriers. This is needed to overcome ‘scarcity mindsets’, where the scarcity of various combinations of unstable employment, health, housing and relationships can stop people from benefiting from the programmes. New approaches to developing physical activity opportunities will be trialled at the forthcoming 2021 Rugby League World Cup. 

After four years of research, we have collated our learning within a forthcoming handbook and online resource called Gameplan. This resource has been designed to assist event practitioners in delivering major events with sustainable local benefits. In the next phase of our work, we will be working with event practitioners and rugby clubs in Doncaster to understand what additional resources and training are required to operationalise our Gameplan resource during the 2021 Rugby League World Cup.