ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. In this book the authors identify some of the gaps in existing research on events and sports events in order to highlight what types of enquiries might usefully be pursued to open up a critical dialogue between researchers, students and practitioners in the events and sports events fields. More specifically, the aim of this book is to move beyond existing operational and pragmatic approaches to event-related studies by exploring sports events as social, cultural, political and mediatised phenomena. It is timely due to the increasingly globalised nature of the sports events industry and the concurrent democratisation of media; not to mention a bourgeoning interest in event studies and events management, with sports events representing a key part of this. The book is divided into four key themes: inventing, packaging and consuming sports events; media and mediatisation; identities; mega-events.
