Research question: This paper examines the legacy of the Beijing Olympics perceived by non-host city residents almost five years after the Games and how that perception would affect attitude towards the hosting of the Games. Research methods: An empirical survey study was conducted in which data were collected from 468 residents of Shanghai through structured questionnaires. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) identified seven factors underlying the perceived legacy of the Beijing Olympics: ‘Psychic income and social capital’, ‘Infrastructure and skills development’, ‘Networks and cooperation’, ‘Environment’, ‘Tourism and economics’, ‘Sport and health’ and ‘Identity and culture’. Results and findings: The findings demonstrate that the level of perceived legacy was significantly above the mid-point on all of the dimensions. In contrast, existing literature in western context demonstrated that on many dimensions values were below the mid-point, suggesting that the economic and cultural backgrounds of residents would make a difference. The paper also confirmed that perceived legacy would positively affect residents' attitude towards the hosting of Olympic Games, further highlighting the importance of continuous legacy leverage of Olympics. Implications: Evidence from this study points to the danger of underestimating the effort required by event planners to harness legacy and shift perception of host city image. More needs to be done, post securing event rights, to communicate with national and international audiences particularly in the developing world.

Recent developments regarding event portfolios have renewed research interest in the management and leveraging of sporting events. This study contributes to the topic by examining the purpose of sporting event portfolios and the process of their strategic planning in an Asian context – Shanghai. Guided by strategic planning theories, this paper explores how Shanghai’s sporting event portfolio was developed and why. Empirically, the study draws on extensive data, specifically, policy and strategy documents and interviews with key sport policymakers and sport experts in Shanghai. The results suggest that Shanghai’s event portfolio benefited from more than 20 years of planning and development. Twelve commercial sporting events were carefully handpicked and cultivated to promote destination branding, to advance Shanghai’s reputation as a global city, and to serve other social and economic development agenda. This study offers some important insights for the planning of event portfolios to enhance city image and stimulate regional development.

The current study explored the thematic framing of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics on X (Twitter), examining how these thematic frames and audience engagement varied across various content creator tiers—mega, macro, micro, and nano content creators—throughout the year surrounding the event. Through the lens of the framing theory, we employed LDA topic modeling and identified three dominant thematic frames: athletic achievements and competition results, international participation dynamics including boycotts and diplomatic engagements, and geopolitical undertones reflecting on the host nation and global conflicts. A noticeable relationship between thematic frames and engagement levels was observed consistently across creator tiers, with athleticism and contest outcomes garnering sustained attention, underscoring its pivotal role in event discussions. Moreover, our findings revealed unique engagement patterns across creator tiers. Mega creators amplified reactions to sports achievements. Macro creators displayed varied engagement, suggesting responsiveness to ongoing events. Micro creators saw fluctuating engagement with a focus on geopolitical issues. Nano creators actively engaged with both sports achievements and political discussions. Overall, the study illuminates the complexities of media representations and audience perceptions, while dissecting the impactful role played by different tiers of content creators in driving public engagement with a global sporting spectacle.

This chapter discusses the professional sports team ownerships of Japan, South Korea and China are examined for the purpose of understanding the governance of the respective country. The similarities and differences among the three countries and the differences between Far East Asia and other continents may be substantially attributed to the respective governance structures. In Japanese professional sport, teams can be characterised by how they are controlled by the parent companies. The board role and board motivation are uniquely characterised either to control functional divisions under the top management team or to guide the organisation and its members towards goals shared by external stakeholders. The Korea Baseball Organisation (KBO) is the first professional as well as and the most popular sports league in South Korea. The KBO has enjoyed unprecedented success at the gates and has set new regular-season attendance records.