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Sports Mega-Events and the Concept of Soft Power

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Entering the Global Arena

Part of the book series: Mega Event Planning ((MEGAEP))

Abstract

‘Soft power’ is becoming a very popular term used by academics, politicians, journalists and commercial organisations. Its widespread use has added to its lack of clarity and obfuscated its meaning. Combining it with sports mega-events—large-scale sporting spectacles—has added to the confusion. This chapter sets about explaining both sports mega-events and the concept of soft power. Moreover, we show how the latter can be used to understand the former through the development of an ideal type of a state’s soft power package. Such a package consists of five interlinked dimensions: culture, tourism, branding, diplomacy and trade. This—the first attempt to develop a heuristic to assess a state’s soft power package—enables us to understand the mechanisms at work behind states’ attempts at pursuing policies to promote their interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business and Law Faculty, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

    Jonathan Grix, Paul Michael Brannagan & Donna Lee

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  1. Jonathan Grix
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  2. Paul Michael Brannagan
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  3. Donna Lee
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Correspondence to Jonathan Grix .

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Grix, J., Brannagan, P.M., Lee, D. (2019). Sports Mega-Events and the Concept of Soft Power. In: Entering the Global Arena. Mega Event Planning. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7952-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7952-9_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-7951-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-7952-9

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