Running Events: Policies, Marketing and Impacts

by Vassil Girginov, Kostas Alexandris, Jeroen Scheerder

This is the first book to critically examine the relationship between running events in local, national and international welfare policy, their marketing and management, and the resulting social impacts.

Drawing on original empirical research, the book presents a series of illustrative case studies, with each chapter containing take-home messages for sport and events managers looking to improve their professional practice. Developing a new theoretical perspective on running events, the book presents data from around the world, including five European countries, the US and China. It covers different types of events, from big city marathons to community park runs, and new types of events such as path and trail runs, night runs, ultra runs, extreme runs and obstacle runs, presenting a typology of running events that will help shape the future analysis of this rapidly growing sector. The book also examines the market for running events, runners’ socio-demographic profiles, the main management and marketing approaches and techniques used by organisers, and the socio-economic impacts of running events, such as the effect on people’s attitudes and behaviours, organisational planning, city promotion and social interactions.

Running events are central to sport at all levels, from grassroots to professional, so this book is essential reading for any student, researcher or practitioner working in sport management, sport development, sport policy, the sociology of sport or event studies.

165 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 27, 2022

About the author

Dr. Girginov is Visiting Professor at the Russian International Olympic University and at the University of Johannesburg. He is also Reader in Sport Management/Development at Brunel University. Previously he has worked as advisor to the Chairman of the Bulgarian Sports Union, on the Sofia bids for the Winter Olympic Games and in higher education institutions in Bulgaria and Canada. He has been researching the sports development legacy of the 2012 London Olympic Games and the relationship between the culture of national sports governing bodies and participation in sport. Vassil is the editor of the two volume collection on the London 2012 Games published by Routledge, and is also an Executive Editor of the 2012 Routledge Special Olympic Journals Issue that involves some 40 journals from a range of academic disciplines. Vassil’s current research projects include: ‘Creation and transfer of knowledge within the Sochi Organizing Committee of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games’ (supported by the Russian International Olympic University), and ‘UK National Governing Bodies of sport leveraging of the London Olympics for capacity building’. His research interests, publications and industry experience are in the field of Olympic movement, sport development, comparative management and policy analysis. His most recent books include Sport Management Cultures (Routledge, 2011), The Olympics: A Critical Reader (Routledge, 2010), Management of Sports Development, (Elsevier, 2008), The Olympic Games Explained (Routledge, 2005, the book has been translated in 5 languages) and Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games (Vol. 1 & 2 - 2012-3).