Falk Researcher Discusses Impact of Olympics on Legacy of Sports Participation

The Tokyo Olympics can have a unique vibe from different video games. No followers within the stands will make for quiet venues. And what influence would possibly which have on drawing younger viewers into watching the video games and taking part in sports activities typically?

For the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, Jamie Jeeyoon Kim, an assistant professor of sport administration within the David B. Falk School of Sport and Human Dynamics, researched how younger individuals have been drawn into watching the video games and extra importantly whether or not they have been then motivated to take part in sports activities—at all times a main curiosity for host nations and people concerned within the Olympic motion.

Kim has a deep background within the Olympics past her analysis. Earlier than coming to academia, she used to work for the Korean Olympic Committee, aiding Korea’s profitable bid for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and serving as a supervisor of the Korean nationwide staff.

For the 2018 Olympics, the PyeongChang Organizing Committee’s “New Horizons” imaginative and prescient was to develop winter sports activities in Asia, bolstered by what some within the sports activities business described because the youngest and fastest-growing winter sports activities market on the earth with the most important mixture youth inhabitants.

To raised perceive the influence of the video games and develop methods for drawing in younger individuals, Kim was awarded $18,000 as a part of the Worldwide Olympic Committee’s superior Olympic analysis grant for her mission, “Constructing a Sport Participation Legacy Via the 2018 Winter Olympic Video games.”

Via her work, Kim says that “social affect was discovered as probably the most influential issue within the Asian youthful generations’ decision-making for Olympic consumption.” In Japan, that ingredient could be lacking on the upcoming video games—as it is going to be exhausting to indicate how individuals are lacking out from an expertise when nobody is within the stands.

Kim additionally acquired a $7,500 Falk School Seed Grant for the mission, “Constructing Korea’s Model Character and Fairness with the Olympic Model and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics,” trying on the nation branding results of internet hosting the Olympic video games.

On this Q&A, Kim solutions a number of questions on her analysis on the legacy of sport participation from the Olympics, her longstanding reference to the Olympics and the joys of the video games.

Q: What did your analysis contain concerning your mission on “Constructing a Sport Participation Legacy Via the 2018 Winter Olympic Video games”?

A: As mirrored within the imaginative and prescient of “New Horizons,” the first objective of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics was to spice up sport participation and spectatorship amongst youthful generations within the Asian market by means of the “trickle-down impact” (i.e., watching the Olympics will encourage individuals to look at and play sport).

Based mostly on “negotiation of motives and constraints,” a mission figuring out and testing the interplay amongst and assessing pre-post adjustments of key inside and exterior motives and intrapersonal, interpersonal and structural constraints was carried out with late adolescents in Korea and China. The mission was funded by the 2017-2018 Superior Olympic Analysis Grant from the Worldwide Olympic Committee’s Olympics Research Centre.

Motives and constraints already recognized to have an effect on normal sport participation and spectating (e.g., enjoyment, escape, value, time constraint) have been discovered to have an effect on Asian youthful generations’ decision-making for Olympic consumption. Notably, social affect and curiosity newly emerged as context-specific elements with sturdy influences.

The shortage of the occasion—being held each 4 years and the uncommon alternative to attend—altered how sure elements affected sport participation and spectatorship (e.g., lack of know-how a few sport is often a constraint however functioned as a motive within the examine).

Moreover, the publicity to the 2018 video games introduced short-term boosts of Asian youthful generations’ intentions for Olympic sport participation and spectating.

Q: What outcomes have been there that could be utilized to different Olympics, together with these upcoming summer time video games? How do you see the dearth of in-person followers on the upcoming Olympics as impacting sport participation?

A: Among the many motives and constraints, social affect was discovered as probably the most influential issue within the Asian youthful generations’ decision-making for Olympic consumption. Social affect—being influenced by mates or household or to observe the pattern—is an element just like the “concern

of lacking out” that may be an influential motive in addition to a moderator facilitating one’s overcoming of constraints.

For the Tokyo Olympics, it is going to be tough to advertise “social affect” among the many Japanese viewers, as banning in-person spectating hinders the constructing of the notion that “you do not need to overlook out when many others are having fun with Olympic sport.” The truth that the vast majority of Japanese are preferring the postponement or cancellation of the video games is one other hindrance for forming “social affect.”

Q: What was probably the most satisfying a part of your work serving with the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics Bid Committee and Korean Olympics Committee?

A: I can not neglect the second when “PyeongChang” was introduced because the host of the 2018 Winter Olympics. It was a second of pleasure and success, however I additionally felt relieved that the bidding course of was lastly over. It was one of many only a few moments I’ve cried out of pleasure.

Attending the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics was additionally a satisfying expertise. I used to be capable of attend the occasion as a researcher. Seeing the Olympic bid plan really being realized and having the ability to meet up with former colleagues have been nice satisfying experiences.

My expertise with the Olympics helped me keep concerned with the Olympic motion in a researcher capability. I’ve labored in a analysis consortium creating a bid technique for the 2032 Seoul Summer season Olympics and a legacy training program for the 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympics. I additionally am working with the Caribbean Affiliation of Nationwide Olympic Committees (NOCs) and its 29 member NOCs on a mission about NOC sponsorship. Having the ability to conduct analysis that assists practitioners and seeing it making an influence could be very rewarding.

Q: What are you most trying ahead to with the upcoming Olympics? What’s your favourite sport to look at?

A: The IOC permits organizing committees so as to add sure sports activities to the Olympic program. For Tokyo, baseball/softball, karate, skateboarding, browsing and sport climbing can be added. These sports activities have been strategically chosen to attraction to the youthful era and the host nation residents.

Personally, I’m enthusiastic about skateboarding, browsing and sport climbing as they make their debut on the Olympic stage. These sports activities are dynamic, energetic and fast-paced, and I imagine the sports activities will deliver extra pleasure and entice extra of a youthful era to look at the Olympics.

My favourite sport to look at just isn’t in the summertime program. It’s short-track velocity skating within the Winter Olympics. I like the game because it is without doubt one of the most fast-paced sports activities, very aggressive and at all times nail-biting. As the previous staff supervisor of the Korean nationwide staff, the truth that Korea has been fairly profitable within the sport did have an effect on my desire of the game.