Commonwealth Games Competative Environment

Events Competitive Environment

The Commonwealth Games 2002 was a major hallmark event, held in Manchester over the period of ten days.

Hiller,(2002 p 449)describes a major hallmark event as "short-term high-profile events like Olympics and World Fairs that always have a significant urban impact. They re-prioritize urban agendas, create post-event usage debates, often stimulate urban redevelopment, and are instruments of boosterist ideologies promoting economic growth"

Colin Hall states that "Hallmark events are major fairs, expositions, cultural and sporting events"

With 72 nations competing against each other in 38 sporting and non sporting venues, there was 200 hours of live TV coverage by the main broadcaster alone(BBC).

The Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games had a set of objectives to aim for,

The internet site www.gameslecagy.com stated that the commonwealth games were to:-

Deliver an outstanding sporting spectacle of world significance ,celebrating athletic excellence, cultural diversity and the unique atmosphere.

To deliver a successful event on behalf of spectators and stakeholders.

To leave a lasting legacy of new sporting facilities, social, physical and economic regenerations, particularly around Manchester.

To set a new benchmark for hosting international sporting events in the UK and the long term benefit they can generate for all those involved.

This event is not just for sport, but to unite England and to involve as many people as possible, with the logo " The Spirit of Friendship".

Manchester 2002 Chairman Charles Allen stated: "I can't tell you how proud I am of my team, who have created the biggest and most successful multi-sport event ever held in Britain."

The Manchester Commonwealth Games was the biggest sporting event in England since the 1948 Olympics. The aim was to put Manchester on the map as an international sporting destination and with the support of its major sponsors and stakeholders, to create a post event legacy for its host city.

For seven years Manchester received funding for this major event, throughout the bidding stage regional stakeholders such as the "British Tourist Authority" and the "North West Tourist Board", the Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) and " New East Manchester" helped to sponsor the advertising and campaigns in hope of being awarded the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

One of the main stakeholders was the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, (DCMS)

The DCMS promotes contribution and benefits of the arts and sports. It fully funds the Arts Council and helps to support and launch major sporting events. As well as investing in major sporting events the DCMS also helps smaller community sports events and schools sports.

Two other major stakeholders were the MCC and Sport England. Sport England is a vital stakeholder in terms of keeping a legacy for the venues after major sports events are held and ensuring that they are all world class standard, another of their aims is to provide legacy for the athletes.

Manchester City council had the job of re-designing and maintaining the event venues and, being host city, had to ensure that Manchester gained as much regeneration from the Commonwealth Games as possible. Whilst working for the Commonwealth Games the MCC also funded other schemes for the sporting talent in Manchester, such as Club Development ,Coach Development , the performance program and the talent fund.

Apart from major stake holders the commonwealth games also got sponsorship from a number of other British brands such as Cadbury, Manchester Airport, Imperial leather and ASDA(for a full list of the sponsors see Appendix 1&2)

The Commonwealth Games were held in 38 venues, the biggest being Manchester City Stadium which held 38,000 seats. With 60% of the tickets sold online and the closing ceremony selling out in 6 weeks it was clearly going to have a massive impact on Manchester as the host city. It promised to generate 10 billions pounds, not including the vast amount of money that Manchester would generate from tourism.

The media coverage was mainly from the BBC, who had 7.5 millions people tuning in at the peak of the events.

Dave Gordon ,BBC sports editor of the commonwealth games stated

"The BBC is proud to have played its part in the success of the games and the record television audiences have been a real reward for the home nation's athletes, as well as the BBC team"

With the media coverage taking 40.7% of audience share, Manchester was given the chance to be showcased across the globe.

One of the most important documents on the commonwealth games in the Post Event Report, 5 volumes of information and statistics on the event.

The purpose of the post event report is to document all of the statistics and figures and give an accurate account of every detail of the Commonwealth Games.

The report has gathered information on different typologies of statistics such as, Communication and Media coverage, Venues, Sales, Ticket sales, Infrastructure and Planning. There was a lot of pressure to ensure that Manchester as a city benefited from these games, as in 1986, Edinburgh reportedly lost 4 million from holding this event. .

In terms of infrastructure Manchester benefited hugely from hosting the commonwealth games 2002.It gave Manchester the chance to be redeveloped, especially in the East where it was originally a industry driven area.

"The public investment in the Games and the associated regeneration infrastructure and activity has increased from Ð'Ј640m to over Ð'Ј670m, at 2002 prices, of which some Ð'Ј570m has been or will be in East Manchester." http://www.gameslegacy.com.

Sport City was one of the structures built that had a big impact on Manchester as a city, a sporting venue that has also been used for music concerts and entertainment.

Other new and regenerated buildings include the National Squash Centre, the City of Manchester Stadium for football and the Manchester Velodrome. Sporting structures such as Bell Vue were given a grant and upgraded.

Not only big venues but smaller community based centers', particularly in Moss