Innovation for Positive Sustainable Legacy From Mega Sports Events: Virtual Reality as a Tool for Social Inclusion Legacy for Paris 2024 Paralympic Games

Abstract

There is significant interest in how sports events and their associated legacies could act as a platform to address global challenges and engender social change. The United Nations (UN) has acknowledged the important role that sport plays in supporting the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Olympic movement could be argued as central to that objective. Yet critical questions and concerns have been raised about the growing expenditure, viability, long term legacy, and impacts of mega sports events such as the Olympic Games. While much evidence has focused on the challenges of creating legacy for Olympic Games, there is considerably less literature on understanding the Paralympic context. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of innovation in creating legacy from MSEs and propose a theoretical and methodological plan for such research. Innovation, a key driver in organizational performance, is suggested as essential to defining, planning for and measuring legacy. We specifically examine the potential of virtual reality (VR) as a technological innovation which can help create a social inclusion legacy in the context of Paris 2024 Olympic/Paralympic Games. A conceptual model is developed, which identifies legacy as a “wicked problem”, and this paper discusses the importance of innovation with regards to legacy, by suggesting a new application for VR technology in the context of legacy related to social inclusion. Information technology is a valuable facilitator of social inclusion for individuals with a disability. We specifically examine the potential of VR as a technological innovation which can help create legacy through influencing unconscious biases (symbolic ableism) toward diversity such as disability, gender, and race.

“This Is the Story of Community Leadership with Political Backing. (PM1)” Critical Junctures in Paralympic Legacy: Framing the London 2012 Disability Inclusion Model for New Global Challenges

“…While there will be no one-size-fits all solution to future global challenges such as delivering inclusion, we believe that when major programs are planning, the first vital step is to listen to the community most affected and to co-construct a joint mission which everyone-no matter their role in the partnership-can support and find a way to be engaged in. In common with the work in [65], we find that the right cross-sector partnership can shape the use of resources, opportunities, and influence leadership and incentives, and our research also supports their findings that engagement, motivation and joint capacity were core factors. We think each of the subsequent steps of the model will be needed to some extent or another in all cases, and we look forward to reading future work which might be better able to assign weightings between the steps for a project or sector.…”

“…Mass sporting events such as the Paralympic Games of London 2012 remain of considerable interest to the global community in how they can be leveraged to address social change and contribute towards the realisation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals [65]. As the authors of [66] found, these events have increasingly become part of the strategic agenda to forge positive social legacies for marginalised people, and partnerships for leveraging this social impact are becoming a critical component of large scale events [67].…”

“…With the advent of the launch of the biggest Human Rights campaign on Disability Inclusion ever, in Tokyo 2021, #wethe15, sport and major events are a seen as a stronger advocacy tool for disability justice than ever before. However, the role of the Paralympic Games, and initiatives like it, in helping to realise disability inclusion is under-serviced in the literature to date, in part due to the Olympic/Paralympic Legacy being viewed as a "wicked problem" [65] by academia, which lacks case study examples of success (and failure). We set out to offer some further evidence in this space.…”

The Legacy of Sport Events for Emerging Nations

“…In the past decade, there has been increased criticism of the negative potential from hosting a mega-event. Critical questions and concerns have been expressed concerning the expanding expense, feasibility, long-term legacy, and repercussions of SMEs (Byers et al, 2021 ). Preuss ( 2019 ) explained that the costs of hosting and debate over a host government's expenditure of public funds, has made corruption a real possibility.…”

“…Grix et al ( 2017 ) added to this list: urban regeneration, national pride/ feel-good factor, increased involvement and participation in physical activity, international reputation and 'soft power'. Increasingly, attention is being paid to the possibility that sporting events and their legacies could serve as a platform to address global concerns and effect social change (Byers et al, 2021 ). For example, the United Nations (UN) has highlighted the significant role that sport plays in promoting the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.…”