The real cost of sport

The real cost of sport

By Roy Hay

(Note: Interim revised version. A conference paper based on this article was given to the conference of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport at the University of Stirling in Scotland on 17 July 2009 and an earlier, shorter version appeared as Roy Hay, ‘The real costs of sport,’ Dissent, 28, Summer 2008/2009, December 2008, pp. 58-60. I am now in the process of updating it to take account of developments in the last few years.)

‘I think the State Government has got a responsibility to treat all sports fairly and equally.’[1]

‘The astonishing truth is that ministers are more scared of upsetting the IOC than the IMF. When politics loses touch with reason, it runs for comfort to those who peddle glory.’[2]

Have you ever wondered how much our national and international obsession with sport costs us? As a died-in-the-wool sports nut, I sometimes wonder myself. There are issues which worry me and among the most important is the extent of existing public subsidies to sporting bodies and the lack of transparency in their provision. Then there are subsidiary questions about the distribution of funds among sports, about which there are massive public misconceptions, and the failure to meet head-on the claims by the sporting bodies that their contribution to the national economy and the health and well-being of society justifies the funding or subsidies or tax breaks they receive. Most of the examples in the following paper are drawn from Australian experience, but they can be replicated in many countries around the world.

It is time for a little bit of clear thinking and research on all these topics. Interestingly, the Federal Minister for Sport, Kate Ellis, announced a review of funding for Australian sporting organisations by the new board of the Australian Sports Commission in 2008.[3] David Crawford, a director of BHP and chairman of Fosters, who is credited with two major reports, which helped transform Australian Rules and football (soccer) into the corporate sports they are today, led the inquiry. It recommended much more public funding for grass roots sport and a cut back on the proportion that went to elite, especially Olympic sports. Before the report was even published John Coates led a high-profile counter-attack which quite spooked the Labor party and resulted in the report being overturned.

Elite athletes or community sport?

Since Malcolm Fraser committed funding for the Australian Institute of Sport and for the promotion of elite sport, in part to improve the disastrous medal tally at the Montreal Olympics, the public contribution has grown significantly. It is an interesting back-of-the-envelope calculation to work out how much each medal won in Sydney or Athens cost the nation. Were the Beijing ones more or less expensive?[4] James Connor of the Australian Defence Force Academy reckons that the most often cited calculations, which are based on the Federal support for the Australian Sports Commission, are a serious underestimate. When funding by state governments and sporting infrastructure costs are taken into account, the figure could exceed $100 million per gold medal.[5]

Peter Bartels, Chair of the Australian Sports Commission, noted that the ASC received $219.9 million from the Australian Government or 0.075 per cent of total government expenditure. Of that amount, $141.5 million is allocated to the ASC’s high performance sports outcome, about half of which goes to sports on the summer Olympics and Paralympics programs and their athletes.[6] Before the Games were over John Coates, the Australian chef de mission, was ramping up the campaign for increased funding for elite athletes, citing the fact that the UK had gone from a nation of also-rans to beating Australia in the medal tally this time. He played on fears that it could be much worse in London in 2012 to try to extract even more revenue from the government in these straitened economic times. The result is the Australian Olympic Committee and Paralympic Committee High Performance Plan (HPP) which calls for an urgent increase in funding for Australia’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes.[7] The bid is for $237.1 million in calendar year 2010, which involves an increase in federal funding on the 2009–10 estimates of $108.8 million.[8] There is no time to wait for the Crawford report, the funding must be available from 1 July 2009, according to John Coates and his Paralympic counterpart Greg Hartung.

The aims of the Federal Government’s document Australian Sport: Emerging Challenges, New Directions published in 2008 are laudable. ‘The ASC will develop and implement targeted initiatives in partnership with national sporting organisations, national sporting organisations for people with a disability and other key stakeholders to increase the involvement in sports by all Australians. A particular focus in 2008–09 will be on Indigenous people, women, youth and people with disabilities, and to improve the capability and sustainability of grassroots clubs and associations.’[9]

The total resourcing for the ASC in the 2008–09 Budget rose to $264.475 million. Of that approximately $84 million went to the development of a national sporting system underpinning the ‘Australian Government’s commitment to foster, support and encourage sport development from grassroots community sport through to high performance sport’ and $157 million to Elite Athlete Development—twice as much for the stars as for community sport and participation. [10]

There is a common belief that the existence of high performing role models has an effect on grass roots participation in sport. Yet as recently as 2003 an Australian Sports Commission report found that success in elite sports often had little impact on general participation in sport in Australia. In international research across 37 countries no relationship was found between children’s fitness and Olympic performance.[11] In his forthcoming book on Sports and National Identity, Tony Ward points out that the overall Australian participation rate in organised sport at 31 per cent in 2002 was very similar to that of the United States at 30 per cent, and behind New Zealand at 36 per cent.[12]

At least the funding of the ASC is accessible and reasonably transparent, but it would be a mistake to think that its support is an accurate measure of the public contribution to the finance of Australian sport.[13]

Meanwhile in Britain they are having second thoughts about the 2012 Olympic commitment and scaling back some of the infrastructure and other plans for the games. Even so the Olympic Games will swallow up the entire yield of the new 50 per cent tax rate between now and 2012.[14] In South Africa the distributional consequences of the hosting of the FIFA World Cup in 2010 are being closely scrutinised.[15]

Hidden costs

It is more than a decade since Kerrie J Levy in Legal Issues for Non-profit Associations asked whether the privileged tax status of the Australian Football League should be reconsidered.[16] At that time, and as far as is known to this day, the AFL has an exemption from income tax on its ‘profits’ at a time when it has been transformed into a non-profit-making sporting body into a massive corporate enterprise. The public subsidy in the form of tax foregone is not widely known and, while it can be justified, there has been relatively little debate on the subject.

In the community more generally there are signs of an emerging concern about the distribution of public monies to sports. In Scotland some sports receive more than 50 per cent of their turnover from public funds, while others, receive less than 20 per cent. ‘Sportscotland’s funding of rugby is more than twice that of cricket in cash terms, and a third greater in percentage terms. Scottish cricket receives nothing from the England and Wales Cricket Board’.[17] In Australia there are similar disparities. In Ballarat the substantial share of resources going to male football and cricket clubs has been called in question. In Geelong, state and local authorities have contributed very significantly to the development of Skilled Stadium, citing the contribution to the local economy that is said to flow from the playing of nine AFL matches there each year. On the Gold Coast, the refurbishment of the Carrara stadium for a new Australian Rules club seems to have attracted $60 million from the Queensland government, $20 million from the local council and $36 million of federal funding.[18] The AFL is said to be contributing only $10 million.[19] The Victorian Minister for Sport, James Merlino said recently, ‘No code gets better support in either the grassroots or the elite from the Government than AFL football.’ He claims his government has ploughed $176 million into the game.[20]

Sporting bodies often obtain significant rate relief from their local authorities. From April 2004 registered community amateur sports clubs can receive 80% mandatory rate relief from business rates in Wolverhampton.[21] It is less easy to justify rate relief for large commercial undertakings whose business just happens to be running a sporting competition and its venues.[22] At the local level the AFL was surprised in 2004 to get a land tax demand from the Victorian government after it ceased to use Waverley Park as a football ground and converted the majority of the site into a potential income earning asset which was later sold to a private developer.[23] Up to that point the AFL also had a huge rate concession from its local authority. The same is true of the Geelong Football Club whose rate payment on Kardinia Park falls well short of the amount that would be charged for a non-sporting body occupying such a prime site in the heart of the city.

The staging of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix illustrates the difficulty in establishing the extent of public support, for as soon as you try to obtain relevant data you run into the blank wall of ‘commercial in confidence’ claims by the sporting body, Melbourne Major Events and the State authorities.[24] One suspects that the Grand Prix organisation, like the generals in the First World War, keeps three sets of statistics, one to fool the public, one to fool the politicians and one to fool themselves. In 2009 in the midst of economic recession and following massive bushfires in Victoria which claimed 173 lives, the Age said the Victorian taxpayer would be contributing a fee of $47 million for the privilege of holding the Grand Prix.[25]

The scale and extent of public sponsorship of sport through Quit, the Transport Accident Commission, Vic Health and similar government sponsored bodies has not been thoroughly measured, nor has the effectiveness of these programs been compared with other more direct measures to achieve socially beneficial outcomes. Australian Football League clubs in Victoria have been using revenue from poker machine clubs for football-related purposes, but claiming that as a community benefit with an associated tax offset.[26] Frank Lowy, Australia’s richest person and the president of the Football Federation of Australia obtained around $15 million from the Federal Government, basically without strings, in order to pay off the debts incurred by the Australian Soccer Federation and its immediate successors, and the FFA has now gained Federal support of $45.6 million for a bid to host the FIFA World Cup in Australia in 2018 or 2022. In support the FFA cite an independent report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers which estimates the economic impact of Australia hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup is a $5.3 billion increase in GDP and a cumulative employment effect of 74,000 jobs. [27] But it is not just an economic benefit which is claimed. The other gains are proposed to include: ‘adding to Australia’s international prestige and reputation; the capacity to promote Australia’s regions and cities; the potential to motivate children to participate in sport leading to long term improved health outcomes; promoting a healthy lifestyle; providing an impetus for initiating improved environmental practices, and; providing an impetus for the creation of cultural and social events.’ Australians like to gamble and gamble on sports, but this exercise is a national gamble on a mammoth scale.

The sports bodies tell you they are only fighting their corner and that they are contributing to the health of the nation, setting an example, and doing good work in the community and that they generally deserve more and more largesse. The costs of sports injuries and long term health problems are not always included in balance sheets of the contribution of sports.[28] Research by the Australian Football League Players Association shows that one-third of past players have conditions requiring attention and 18 per cent have been referred to psychologists.[29] The trick for sports organisations is to get public assistance by stealth (tax relief) or for some ‘worthy national object’, like bidding to host the World Cup or ‘community benefit’. I have no great objections to them getting public support, but it should be transparent and measured against other real needs in our society, and they should be accountable for it. And the sports bodies should never be allowed to shelter behind ‘commercial in confidence’ in respect of public money.

Accountability is one thing Prime Minister Rudd seems keen to achieve for his own ministers, so why not do the same for sport, and each year we could have a chance to question its stewardship of the grants, subsidies, sponsorship and tax forgone. It might make the sporting bodies a little more appreciative of the contribution that we, the public, already make. And it would waken the rest of us up to the sheer scale of public subventions, which would also be no bad thing.

Where did it all begin?

According to German sports historian Arnd Krüger, the inspiration for the Australian Institute of Sport model goes back to the British preparation for the summer Olympic Games of 1916, which never took place, thanks to the First World War. That was probably the genesis of modern public support for athletic performance despite the deeply held cult of the amateur and the belief that sport and politics should not mix. The host city for 1916 was to be Berlin. ‘Germany had taken part in each Olympics since 1896, and when Berlin was awarded the 1916 games, the national government undertook not only the financial guarantees to underwrite the cost of the event, as was done in other countries, but went even further and paid for the selection and preparation of the athletes, a path the United States would not take until 1978.’ [30]

The notion of state support for sport for propaganda purposes was picked up by Mussolini, particularly with the Italian football team at the World Cup in 1934, and then by Goebbels and Hitler for the games which were held in Berlin in 1936. Later it was further developed by the Soviet Union and by eastern European countries under Soviet hegemony during the Cold War. Dennis Frost, an American sports historian, noted that Japan did the same thing in 1964, introducing ‘loads of policies aimed at “athlete strengthening”, and all kinds of new sports science [brought in] to train athletes more efficiently. Korea focused its elite sports program explicitly on the Olympics [in Seoul in 1988]’.[31] Australian sport took some though not all of these ideas over for the Australian Institute of Sport and the Australian Sports Commission even planned to appoint an East German coach who had been associated with the use of performance-enhancing substances until a public outcry prevented that happening. Now the Australian model and Australian coaches and sports scientists are exported to Europe and these personnel are involved with publicly and privately funded sports institutes and centres of excellence across the continent.

Economic benefits and costs

Sports marketers claim economic and commercial benefits from public and private funding of sports events. But the evidence on this is often weak or critically dependent on some heroic assumptions. Euro ‘96 has been claimed to be the most successful European football championship ever staged. Travel and tourist expenditure added 0.1% to UK GDP in the second quarter of 1996, about a quarter of UK total growth in that period. But some sectors of the economy went backwards and the impact on total UK consumer expenditure was modest.[32] In 1998 France experienced a decline in overall tourism during the FIFA World Cup as ‘normal’ visitors stayed away during the tournament, fearing the disruption caused by the football and the possibility of football-related hooliganism and violence. Stefan Bielmeier in The Globalist concluded that the 1998 World Cup produced a net drag on French tourist revenues which normally make up about 7 per cent of GDP.[33]

Though international visitors to Australia rose by 7 per cent in the year of the 2000 Olympics, this was below the rate of growth of 1993 to 1996, and in the following three years inward tourism fell.[34] The evidence on private gains is also problematical. Stadium Australia Trust lost more than $60 million before it was bought by its largest creditor, the ANZ bank which was owed $130 million. ‘Despite the success of the Sydney Olympics, the stadium failed to attract enough attendance to help pay down its mountain of debt.’[35] Adidas stated that its sponsorship of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany was its most successful ever after chalking up record football sales on the back of its association with the tournament. But a Standard and Poor’s survey of share price movements queried the value of previous World Cup sponsorships.

According to the NSW Treasurer, Michael Egan, the total cost of staging the Sydney Olympic Games was $6.5 billion. The Federal Government contributed $194 million and the private sector $1.3 billion, while the NSW State Government put in $2.3 billion.[36] Prior to the games there were many projections of the economic benefits, including increased tourism, that would flow. The NSW Treasury pre-games study concluded, ‘The Olympics is expected to cause some modest increases in investment, in particular in the pre-Games period. The increase in exports is expected to be significant in the Games year’. The economic effects of the Sydney Olympics were limited to New South Wales and virtually non-existent for the rest of the country. In a post-games assessment John Madden of the University of Tasmania concluded, ‘The effects of the Olympic Games over the 12-year period examined is quite small. The overall estimated impact on Australian GDP is that it will be 0.12% higher over the 12 years from 1994/95 than if Sydney had not staged the Games. For NSW, the Games are estimated to increase GSP by around a quarter of a per cent compared to what otherwise would have been the case.’ He went on to argue that it is important that over-optimistic projections of the effects of mega events, such as the Olympics, are not made and that many other factors influenced the ultimate outcome for NSW and Australian economic variables.[37]

If even a mega-event like the Olympics has very modest economic effects are we wise to continue to pour resources into sport for its economic benefits? I wonder how far Ken Livingston’s five legacy benefits of hosting the 2012 games In London will be fulfilled?[38]

Other costs: Is it worth it?

The economic costs of sport are not, of course, the only ones. Sport is often associated with violence among players and spectators. Its role in character formation has often been praised but modern male sport has been at the centre of numerous instances of sexual assault, raising questions about the kind of masculinity it has drawn on and fostered.

In sports clubs pushing the boundaries of the rules and playing out of your skin are attributes which are encouraged in young active males. Selfless behaviour on behalf of the club is demanded, not just expected. If team bonding and going in for your mates are key virtues and serious alcohol sessions are indulged in after matches it is not surprising that young men are likely to engage in conduct in groups which they might not consider when they are alone and sober. If willing females congregate around celebrity footballers, also under the influence of drink or substances, the chances of a moral breakdown occurring are substantially increased. Also the likelihood of circumstances changing during the course of an occasion are high and people can find that defence mechanisms and prudence are not enough to prevent escalation occurring. In such circumstances it requires a strong will to back out as an individual and even stronger one to intervene and demand that unacceptable behaviour be terminated by your mates. That is a huge test of leadership and it is not perhaps surprising that it is sometimes failed.

A hungry media knowing that scandal sells and a corporate world which demands that brands be protected by higher standards than those acceptable to the general community or those observed by members of their own organisations are ready to pounce on events in high profile sports. Respect for females and gender equity are key virtues which need to be reinforced and sports clubs are waking up to this, though strong resistance remains.[39]

Barriers to indigenous participation remain high with racism still occurring in sporting contexts.[40] Homophobia abounds despite recent education campaigns by clubs and associations.

The cost of security at sporting events is now very significant. In South Africa and Brazil the costs of securing the World Cup football tournaments in 2010 and 2014 were enormous. Sporting events have always been at risk from political groups with the Munich Olympics in 1972 and the tour by Sri Lankan cricketers to Pakistan in 2009 two notorious examples.

Sport has been associated with and sponsored by commercial companies dealing in alcohol, tobacco smoking and gambling. The costs of advertising these products is high and sports have been a means of achieving greater brand and industry awareness. Their effects on national health and well-being remain almost certainly negative.

Let me end where I began. I am not arguing that sport should have no public and private funding, but rather that we should have a clearer and more coherent debate, based on full knowledge of the costs and claimed and realised benefits about our current financing of sport in comparison with other areas of expenditure. That debate might make the sports bodies a little more appreciative of the contribution which we, the public, already make. And it would waken the rest of us up to the sheer scale of public subventions, which would also be no bad thing. And the sports bodies should never be allowed to shelter behind ‘commercial in confidence’ in respect of public money.

Author details

Roy Hay is a partner in Sports and Editorial Services Australia and an Honorary Fellow of Deakin University where he taught for 25 years. He is the co-editor with Bill Murray of The World Game Downunder and has just published A History of Football in Australia: A Game of Two Halves, Hardie Grant, Melbourne, 2014 with him. A conference paper based on this article was given to the conference of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport at the University of Stirling in Scotland on 17 July 2009 and an earlier, shorter version appeared as Roy Hay, ‘The real costs of sport,’ Dissent, 28, Summer 2008/2009, December 2008, pp. 58-60.

References

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[1] Andrew Demetriou, CEO of the Australian Football League, as quoted in Scott Spits, ‘AFL wants state’s help,’ Age, Sport, 9 May 2009, p. 3.

[2] Simon Jenkins, ‘Britain’s Olympic Obsession,’ Guardian Weekly, 1 May 2009, p. 21.

[3] Glenda Korporaal, ‘Reviews herald a funding win for sport,’ The Australian, 6 September 2008; ‘Expert Independent Sport Panel Appointed,’ http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr08-ke-ke045.htm, accessed 18 December 2008.

[4] ‘Gold medals cost taxpayers $17m each’, The Australian, August 24, 2008.

[5] James Connor, ‘Who wins when we spend so much on so few?’, Sunday Age, 24 August 2008, p. 19.

[6] Peter Bartels, ‘Review our sports system,’ Geelong Advertiser, 26 August 2008, p. 11.

[7] ‘AOC and APC urge Government to act quickly on funding,’ Australian Olympic and Paralympic Committees, Press Release, 13 March 2009, http://corporate.olympics.com.au/news.cfm?ArticleID=10034. The full High Performance Plan is available as a PDF from this website, accessed 15 March 2009.

[8] AOC/APC High Performance Plan, Sydney, March 2009, p. 5.

[9] ASC Agency Budget Statements, pp. 326 and 334. http://www.ausport.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/170567/ASC.pdf, accessed 22 September 2008, p. 329.

[10] ASC Agency Budget Statements, pp. 326 and 334. http://www.ausport.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/170567/ASC.pdf, accessed 22 September 2008.

[11] T.S Olds, et al. Children and Sport. Report for the Australian Sports Commission, University of South Australia, September, 2004, pp. 109–110.

[12] Tony Ward, Aussie. Aussie. Aussie! Sports and National Identity, Taylor and Francis, 2009, citing Australian Bureau of Statistics Participation in Sport and Physical Activities (4177.0) in 1996-97 and 2002, Sport and Recreation New Zealand SPARC Facts ’97-’01, (drawn from surveys conducted in 1997, 1998 and 2000) and Statistical Abstract of the United States 2006, 791, available from www.census.gov. All surveys asked respondents if they “took part in at least one organised sporting activity in the last year”.

[13] Roy Hay, ‘Untold story of sports rorts,’ Geelong Advertiser, 14 May 2008, p. 23.

[14] Jenkins, ‘Britain’s Olympic Obsession,’ p. 21.

[15] Alex Duval Smith, ‘Shadows over the party: South Africa’s poor find little to cheer in $1.2bn World Cup preparations,’ Guardian Weekly, 13 February 2009, p. 40; ‘Sleaze and anger as South Africa heads for first World Cup,’ Observer, 1 February 2009..

[16] Kerrie J Levy, ‘The Australian Football League: Is it time for the siren to blow?’, in Legal Issues for Non-profit Associations, eds Myles MacGregor Lowndes, Keith Fletcher, A S Silvers (Sydney: LBC Information Services, 1996): 95–120.

[17] Mike Stanger and Doug Gillon, ‘Financial support for sport is short on consistency,’ The Herald, Glasgow, 9 May 2008, http://www.theherald.co.uk/sport/headlines/display.var.2258424.0.Financial_support_for_sport_is_short_on_consistency.php, accessed 10 May 2008.

[18] Scott Spits, ‘AFL wants state’s help,’ Age, Sport, 9 May 2009, p. 3.

[19] Richard Hinds, ‘ Upbeat Demetriou would inspire more confidence if his team could get footy’s mind-bending rules right,’ Age, Sport, 16 March 2009, pp. 6–7.

[20] Jake Niall and Caroline Wilson, ‘AFL, clubs consider moving games in arena battle,’ Age, Sport, 24 March 2009, p. 2; see also Roy Hay, ‘AFL pays price’, Age, Insight, 21 March 2009, p. 6.

[21] Rate Relief for Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs), Wolverhampton City Council, www.wolverhampton.gov.uk/business/finance/rates/sports_clubs, accessed 7 March 2009.

[22] For discussion of rating issues for sports stadia see www.voa.gov.uk/instructions/chapters/rating_manual/vol5sect970/frame

[23] Jake Niall, ‘AFL’s $1.67 m Waverley boost,’ Age Sport, 28 February 2006, p. 3. AFL won a court case to recover the money paid.

[24] Geraldine Mitchell, ‘Australian GP deal for Melbourne cost $250m,’ www.news.com.au/heraldsun, 2 October 2008, http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24434207-2862,00.html; ‘Vic govt dismisses claim over Grand Prix cost,’ ABC News, 2 October 2008, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/02/2379868.htm.

[25] Ben Doherty, ‘$47 m fee a formula for easy profits,’ Age, 14 March 2009, p. 1.

[26] Melissa Fyfe, ‘Hawks claim $2m pokies revenue as community benefit’, Sunday Age, 5 October 2008, pp. 1 & 4.

[27] Football Federation Australia, media release, Sydney, 10 December 2008.

[28] Lorna Edwards, ‘Sport injury crisis “is being ignored”’, Age, 23 September 2008, p. 3.

[29] Greg Baum, ‘Pies’ greats serenade good old Collingwood,’ Age, Sport, 6 June 2009, p. 10. See also Martin Flanagan, ‘It’s best to stay grounded, even in footy,’ quoting Michael Mitchell, a star of Aboriginal heritage and now program manager for the West Australian indigenous mental health unit, on the “void” when he finished playing. “You go from having 90,000 people at the MCG shouting every time you do something good to hearing nothing. You’re not a footballer any more but you are not part of the community same as you were before.”

[30] Arnd Krüger, ‘Germany: The Propaganda machine,’ in Arnd Krüger and Bill Murray, eds, The Nazi Olympics: Sport, Politics and Appeasement in the 1930s, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, 2003, p. 17.

[31] Dennis Frost, Assistant Professor of History, Xavier University, ‘Some thoughts on the Beijing Olympics,’ , 27 August 2008.

[32] Mick Finn, ‘From Sport to Spectacle: the Emergence of Football as a Destination Attribute or Look What They’ve Done to Our Game: the McDonaldization of Football’, in Richard N Voase, Tourism in Western Europe : A Collection of Case Histories, CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon, UK, c2002, p. 173, citing N. Dobson et al, ‘Football Comes Home,’ Leisure Management, May 1977, pp. 16–19 and J Loynes, ‘Euro ’96: an extra kick for the economy,’ Greenwell Gilt Weekly, September 1996, pp. 2–3.

[33] Stefan Bielmeier, ‘Kicking off economic growth,’ The Globalist, 5 April 2006, Boston Globe website, http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=5232, accessed 9 August 2006.

[34] Richard Cashman, The Bitter-Sweet Awakening: the Legacy of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, Walla Walla Press, Sydney, 2006.

[35] Danny John and Scott Rochfort, ‘Fitzpatrick’s grab lands Olympic venue,’ Age Business, 24 June 2009, p. 1,

[36] Jill Haynes, Socio-economic impact of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, National Sport Information Centre Australia, [online article]. Barcelona: Centre d’Estudis Olímpics UAB. [Consulted: dd/mm/yy] <http://olympicstudies.uab.es/pdf/wp094_eng.pdf> [Date of publication: 2001].

[37] John R. Madden, The Economic Consequences of the Sydney Olympics: The CREA/Arthur Andersen Study, http://www.commerce.otago.ac.nz/tourism/current-issues/homepage.htm, accessed 21 September 2008.

[38] Increasing opportunities for Londoners to become involved in sport; Ensuring Londoners benefit from new jobs, business and volunteering opportunities; Transforming the heart of East London; Delivering a sustainable Games and developing sustainable communities; Showcasing London as a diverse, creative and welcoming city. Ken Livingston, Mayor of London, Five Legacy Commitments, January 2008, http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/olympics/docs/5-legacy-commitments.pdf.

[39] Catharine Lumby, ‘Why group sex is not the main issue here,’ Age, 12 March 2004. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/11/1078594493551.html

[40] Paul Oliver, What’s the Score? A survey of cultural diversity and racism in Australian sport, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Sydney, 2006.