Sustainability, the Athens Marathon and Greece’s sport event sector: lessons of resilience, social innovation and the urban commons

Abstract

Increasingly, a confluence of challenging global forces have precipitated sport sector change. While responses vary, a discernible trend has been the growing extents to which sport organisations and events have transcended typical participatory, performance and/or spectator focused logistics and embraced social responsibility acts that embed sport more deeply into communities. These manoeuvres have also become fundamental to organisation and sector capacity building and sustainability. Accordingly, this paper examines the example set by the Athens Marathon, Greece’s leading sport sector entity, towards sustainable event development through its strengthened volunteer and civil society practices and stakeholder relationships. Drawing data from key Athens Marathon informants and building upon conceptual models of sustainability that emphasise the interplay of resilience, social innovation and an urban commons, we demonstrate how the Athens Marathon affords a useful exemplar of how key organisational events may inform sustainability and sector strengthening.