This innovative volume moves beyond existing operational approaches to events studies by exploring sports events as social, cultural, political, and mediatised phenomena. The core themes of consumption, media technologies, representation, identities and culture are discussed to offer new insight into how sports events contribute to generation of individual and shared meaning over personal, community and national identities as well as the issues of conflict and power associated with these. The book takes a multi-disciplinary approach with contributions from areas including sports studies, media studies, sociology, cultural studies, communications, politics, tourism and gender studies.

Katherine Dashper (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University. Her research interests include gender and sexuality within sport and leisure practices, with a particular focus on equestrianism and rural recreation. She is editor of Rural tourism: An international perspective (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2015).

Thomas Fletcher (PhD) is Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University. His research interests include: 'race'/ethnicity, social identities, families and pets, and equity and diversity in sport and leisure. He is editor (with Katherine Dashper) of Diversity, equity and inclusion in sport and leisure (Routledge, 2014).

Nicola McCullough is Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University. She is Course Leader for the MSc in Sports Events Management.. Her research interests are broadly concerned with governance and major sporting events and the importance of professionalism within the global sports events industry.

Section One: Inventing, packaging and consuming sport Section Two: Media and 'mediatisation' Section Three: Identities Section Four: Mega-events