Sport development in challenging times: leverage of sport events for legacy in disadvantaged communities

This paper is focused on the legacy of 2016 BMX World SuperCross event held in Manchester. In the current social, political and economic climate, the consideration of wider impacts of major events has come under increasing scrutiny. An increasingly critical debate in a growing literature has addressed social benefits, sporting and community impacts of major events and the methods to achieve increases in sport participation. This paper considers the impacts on people, processes and practice, or “soft legacy” through the realistic evaluation of two BMX projects which were hosting. The impact of attempts to leverage social and sport development impacts in particularly challenging communities are examined, applying a Realistic Evaluation framework [Pawson, R., & Tilley, N. (1997). Realistic evaluation. London: Sage] to two programmes. Though the programme of Street BMX was successful in reaching over 500 participants and in the targeted event-based programme there were positive benefits to the participants, limited evidence of longer term impacts was found. Conclusions highlight implications for event-based sport development interventions attempting to engage hard-pressed communities.