https://www.businessdestinations.com/move/travel-management/from-london-to-sochi-whose-olympic-games-paid-off/

Mega sporting events (MSE) have a place in everyone’s lives in some way or another, with them now being a major part of public policy, the events and their legacy are open to relative analysis. Aside from the mass amount of entertainment in MSE, I want to shine light on what happens behind the scenes in regards to social dimension and whether MSE meet the social needs of present and future generations.

Mega sporting events are often justified with reference to their role in addressing urban inequity and promoting a collective of identities, whilst also criticised for their questionable ethics. Suggesting an increase of attention on social sustainability is urgently required! The effects of MSE need to be understood from previous events in order for us to review theoretical perspectives. Facilitating the understanding of WHY certain effects occur, rather than simply if they occur.

MSE are perceived as having the potential to contribute to a number of beneficial opportunities as well as risk to the countries that host them and their communities. However, benefits for host countries are do not come as easily as they are promised. Consequences countries face flow form the mass scale and complexity of the event being held, and the logistics of delivering a national MSE. Socio-political and economic environment of the host are both important to consider for the prospective hosts and event owners in allocating hosting rights to a country. The importance of these is unsurprising considering that many concerns have been raised over the relatively recent relocation of events to developing countries which, frequently lack the economic, political and social stability of the traditional industrialized host. The Olympics in Rio, 2016 had the controversy over holding a multi-billion-dollar event in an underdeveloped country in the midst of political turmoil, the ethical problems surrounding this where on-going throughout the games.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/01/real-cost-brazilian-olympic-games-160125060759255.html

Though we can’t kid ourselves that the 2016 Brazilian Olympics is the first mega sporting event to be under public protest for the violation of citizens’ rights. There were some massive violations that have occurred in other recent mega events; 1.5 million people displaced, ten construction workers deaths, and 17,000 workers issuing complaints about workplace corruption during the preparation for the Beijing Olympics. Discovered sweat shop labour which affected South Africa, Pakistan, India, China, and Southeast Asia creating merchandise for the Olympics in South Africa and Beijing. And I’m sure many more unpublished ethical violations which have demonstrated social dimension, have been occurring right beneath the enjoyment of watching MSE.

Countries not in their eligible state should not be made to sacrifice what they have in order to meet societies expectations of the surface of MSE. We have to work together as one rather than individual nations to stop poverty, war and fix human rights and to push this mass responsibility onto them is not helping. We then however have to take into consideration whether it be fair to then cut out developing nations from MSE hosting, are they less affluent? And arguably less prepared to deliver large scale sports events than developed nations? Does this information equipped governing bodies with the knowledge to make them ethically obliged to withhold hosting rights from developing countries? Logically within developing contexts, the cost of hosting and risk of failure is likely to be far higher than for events held in the developed world.

To create just a greater awareness of human rights violations because of mega sporting events will create more public scrutiny and help to deter organisers of the events and the allocated host cities from using unethical methods to complete projects. To fix this global problem we need to globally find a solution for it.

Reference List:

Socialjusticestories.leadr.msu.edu. (2017). Creating Ethical Practices in Mega Sporting Events – Social Justice Stories. [online] Available at: http://socialjusticestories.leadr.msu.edu/2016/04/13/creating-ethical-practices-in-mega-sporting-events/ [Accessed 1 Nov. 2017].

MacDonald, C. (2016). The 2016 Rio Olympics were a great sporting event, and an ethical mess. [online] Canadian Business - Your Source For Business News. Available at: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blogs-and-comment/rio-2016-ethics-roundup/ [Accessed 2 Nov. 2017].

Research Gate. (2017). Sports mega-events, the non-West and the ethics of event hosting. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319963103_Sports_mega-events_the_non-West_and_the_ethics_of_event_hosting [Accessed 1 Nov. 2017].