Leveraging participatory sport events for sense of community in the context of a global pandemic: the case of the Illinois Marathon

Chen, Guangzhou

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116045 Copy

Description

Title

Leveraging participatory sport events for sense of community in the context of a global pandemic: the case of the Illinois Marathon

Author(s)

Chen, Guangzhou

Issue Date

2022-07-06

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• Welty Peachey, Jon
• Stodolska, Monika

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

• Welty Peachey, Jon
• Stodolska, Monika

Committee Member(s)

• Misener, Laura
• Stewart, William

Department of Study

Recreation, Sport and Tourism

Discipline

Recreation, Sport, and Tourism

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Sense of community
• Event leverage
• Event cancellation
• Participatory sport event
• The COVID-19 Pandemic
• The Illinois Marathon
• Virtual race

Abstract

Sport events of varying sizes and scales have been widely used as a tool to build sense of community (SOC). However, the efforts to use sport events to build SOC have been substantially disrupted due to the event postponement or cancellation across the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whilst most sport event studies have investigated the impacts of staging sport events on SOC among event stakeholders, relatively little attention has been paid to the impacts of event cancellation. Therefore, the overall purpose of my dissertation was to examine how the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated cancellation of a participatory sport event (i.e., the Illinois Marathon) have impacted SOC among event stakeholders and the ways in which SOC may have been maintained and built in light of the event cancellation. Guided by the theory of SOC, my dissertation consists of three interrelated papers. The purpose of Paper 1 was to investigate the ways in which SOC among event stakeholders (i.e., runners, volunteers, local business owners, and charitable organization managers) evolved, if at all, due to an event cancellation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on document analysis semi-structured individual interviews with 31 event stakeholders, including 14 runners, 9 volunteers, 4 small business owners, and 4 charitable organization managers, I found that event stakeholders’ SOC went through three key stages: (a) leaving a hole in the community, (b) getting a glimpse of normalcy, and (c) living in a new normal. The purpose of Paper 2 was to explore the ways in which the cancellation of an in-person sport event was leveraged for SOC among event participants. To gather data, I employed document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 6 event organizers and 14 runners. The first major finding of this paper was that event organizers were able to develop some new, creative sport or event programs (e.g., virtual race, virtual challenge, and a small-scale in-person race) to build SOC among participants. With the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, the changing federal and state regulations, and people’s perceptions of risk constantly changing, the ways in which event organizers leveraged the cancellation of the in-person sport event also went through a dynamic, iterative process. Event organizers kept learning, developing, revising, and implementing new programs during the pandemic. The second major finding was that the lack of staff, time, knowledge, and resources presented major challenges to leveraging event cancellation for SOC among event participants. The purpose of Paper 3 was to explore SOC among participants of the 2020 Illinois Marathon Virtual Race. Participant-driven (semi-structured) photo elicitation interview was conducted with 20 runners who participated in the 2020 Illinois Marathon Virtual Race. The first major finding of this paper was that virtual race participants’ SOC was created through (a) authenticity, (b) theming, (c) spectator support, and (d) fulfillment of social needs. The second major finding was that participants also faced challenges in creating SOC through the virtual race, including having to take SOC into their own hands and receiving delayed gratification. Taken together, my dissertation adds a new dimension of the body of literature, which has mainly focused on the impacts of hosting sport events on local communities. More importantly, my dissertation makes an important theoretical contribution by developing a model for leveraging event cancellation for SOC to integrate several key concepts (i.e., event cancellation, SOC, and event leverage). The findings of my dissertation also have managerial implications by providing event stakeholders with useful insights into how to respond to emergencies, leverage event cancellation for potential positive outcomes, develop creative sport programs to keep participants involved, and keep event stakeholders socially connected in the context of social isolation.

Graduation Semester

2022-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Guangzhou Chen

Owning Collections