ABSTRACT
Public investment in sports facilities and events is a widely debated topic in sports management and economics. Debate concerns the use of sports investment as an economic policy intervention that yields potential benefits to a community following the use of public funds to construct stadia and facilities and/or to host sports events. Consequently, the literature focuses on the purported direct and indirect economic benefits and costs. Less is written about the intangible economic impacts, and even less on the ‘human legacy’. This paper attempts to contribute to filling this gap in the literature by exploring the sports development impacts upon the interest in sport, sportsparticipation and sports volunteering, as well impacts upon more general volunteering that follow from the experience of volunteering at a major sporting event, the XVII Manchester Commonwealth Games. This implies viewing the investment in a major event as a sports development and social policy tool as much as an economic intervention per se.
