Due to government restrictions because of COVID-19, all participatory sport events (PSEs) were cancelled. As a result, knowledge is needed as to how and to what extent participants of PSEs modified...

The United Nations (UN) considers sports as an important enabler of sustainable development. The popular and fast-growing Participatory Sports Event (PSE) sector can play an important role in this regard, however, research that measures and reports sustainability in PSEs is scarce. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to construct and validate a research instrument based on the UN’s sustainable development goals, and to examine sustainability in PSEs. To this end, an online survey was administered among a representative sample of 303 PSE organisers, located in Flanders, Belgium. A confirmatory factor analysis affirmed the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the instrument and provided evidence for its validity and reliability. The results reveal significant discrepancies between the three dimensions, with a noticeable lower score for environmental sustainability compared to social and economic sustainability. Furthermore, challenges are highlighted in the field of the civil society sector and in walking sports events. The findings also indicate that large-sized events are more likely to be sustainable. The current study can act as a foundation for future research on sustainability in PSEs and can assist PSE organisers and policymakers to increase the sustainability-related performance of the sector.

Host residents’ support is of paramount importance for the success of spectator sports events. Factors influencing event support have been investigated in past research, but usually in isolation. The current study includes multiple factors by analysing the relationship among involvement, social impact experiences, and event support. Data were collected online four and six months before, during, and two months after the 2021 UCI Road World Championships from 3219 from residents, representative for the city of Leuven (Belgium). The 2021 UCI Road World Championships offered a unique context, as it was the first large spectator sports event organised in Flanders since COVID-19. The event had a limited social impact, but this increased over time (e.g., community spirit and event support). Social impact experiences mainly exerted a significant influence on event support rather than attitudinal and behavioural involvement factors. The results of this study inform national and local policymakers to attract events, event organisers to achieve impact and legacy, and other scholars to improve the understanding of spectator sports event research.

Purpose: Being innovative is important for non-profit sport organizations in order to meet the ever-changing and increasing societal needs. Understanding why and to what extent organizational innovativeness differs between non-profit sport organizations is, therefore, important to assess and increase their chances of survival. The purpose of this study is to compare the structural characteristics and attitudes of innovation attributes between three groups of sport federations (SFs).Design/methodology/approach: An online self-assessment survey was sent to all recognized regional Belgian SFs (N = 156). Simultaneously, an observational desk research (i.e. media analysis) was carried out. Results from both data collection methods were combined to develop a composite organizational innovativeness-index, based on which the federations were then clustered in three distinct adopter groups.Findings: Comparative statistics show that structural background characteristics generally are poor indicators for adopter categorization. In contrast, the attitudes about compatibility (i.e. the consistency of innovations with existing values) and complexity (i.e. the extent to which innovations are difficult to apprehend) seem the most important distinctive determinants for the different groups of SFs.Originality/value: The study's contribution is twofold. First, it offers a methodological contribution with the development of an index, which enables the categorization of non-profit sport organizations according to their organizational innovativeness; thus, it provides a critical counter-argument to the importance of organizational structural background characteristics from previous studies. Second, the study's results may support non-profit sport organizations in improving their innovativeness, for instance by improving the perception of compatibility with innovation or by guiding policymakers in creating a more supportive environment for these organizations to do so.