The societal impact of elite sport: positives and negatives: introduction to ESMQ special issue

As nations are increasingly investing large amounts of public money in elite sport development, policy makers often claim that elite sport will not only lead to more medals, but it will also trigger a range of wider societal outcomes. This point is clearly illustrated by the high-performance directors who were interviewed for this introduction. Notwithstanding the many claims, empirical studies that explore the outcomes of elite sport to society are largely fragmented and anecdotal. The six papers within this Special Issue add to our academic understanding of the complexity and multidimensional nature of both investigating and managing the societal impact of elite sport. By testing the papers against a hierarchy of evidence, they resonate with calls for sport management researchers to contribute to the field by utilising robust and appropriate research designs. However, as confirmed by the various studies, causality on this topic is still difficult to establish. We, therefore, call for a future research agenda that shifts away from wondering ‘if’ particular societal impacts attributable to elite sport exist, to answering the question ‘under what circumstances are they most likely to occur’.