Special Activity Generators have been a policy popular with governments across the country seeking to revitalize lethargic downtowns. Sports facilities, a widespread form of Special Activity Generators, have been shown to be incapable of generating regional economic benefits, but are able to generate urban redevelopment. While sports facilities are well studied by academics, minor league stadiums have not been the focus of significant research despite the larger number of such projects. My dissertation uses a sequential explanatory mixed methodology to answer whether minor league baseball stadiums are successful as Special Activity Generators. I first use a quantitative analysis of sixteen stadiums built around the year 2000 which finds a significant effect of the stadium on nearby neighborhoods in comparison to the rest of the city. However, that growth is created by concentrating redevelopment, not creating unique activity. Two case studies clarify that the stadiums were critical to the observed redevelopment efforts, but also that there is a need for thorough planning and collocated amenities prior to construction in order to maximize the results from the public investment.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Economics, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 487-501).

Report (M.S. Ed.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 26). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Jeffrey James, Florida State University, College of Education. Dept. of Sport Management, Recreation Management, and Physical Education. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 7, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 169 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

The National Football League (NFL) stands as one of the most visible and dominant organizations within American popular culture. However, despite being at the pinnacle of its popularity and the precipice of its seemingly last obstacle of international expansion, the last decade has seen the league confronting a series of crises that have destabilized and challenged the previously coherent meanings of the sport put out by the league and broadly recirculated within popular discourses. Propelled by these crises, the previously accepted framing of the league as “America's game” has come under increased scrutiny as media, citizens, and public officials critically reevaluate the role and merits of the league in contemporary American society. In this project I examine three cases situated in or around these crises: (1) the increased awareness of the medical dangers of playing the game, (2) the emergence of luxury stadiums, and (3) the league's philanthropic efforts. These case are an important heuristic lens for examining contemporary tensions between the NFL, identity, community, and commerce. As the league increasingly positions itself as a global media and sport corporation, it is upsetting and reshaping its historical localisms: the relationships to its fans, the cities that host its teams, and even the country which it calls home. Furthermore, the economic pressures of continual capitalist expansion as guided by neoliberal restructuring—favoring privatization, the primacy of unregulated markets, and ideologies of individual determination—require the incessant commodification of not only the NFL and its players, but also its constructed meanings. In examining these cases, this dissertation establishes and analyzes the often contradictory and contested motivations, aspirations, and meanings of the league in contemporary U.S. society.

To say that modern day stadium and arena construction is a controversial topic is an understatement of the magnitude it has. Every couple of years, a host-city somewhere in the world gets the burden of building new expensive and spectacular stadiums, infrastructure and all the logistics that comes with hosting a major sporting venue such as the olympics or FIFA world cup. But after the games, these stadiums most often stands as an expensive tourist attraction that requires maintenance and is not used to the intended full potential. Occupying valuable space and resources. My project is a conceptual research that aims to find an alternative story-line for this problem and suggest a new method of how stadiums could be designed, built, transformed and used.

No description available.

Os espaços esportivos dos clubes de futebol são construções marcantes na paisagem, cuja função envolve sentimentos e paixões no público que vivencia o dia-a-dia do esporte mais popular do país, transformando os estádios e campos de futebol em uma espécie de templo de peregrinação, um patrimônio históricocultural representativo do lugar onde está inserido. No Brasil, e mais precisamente no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, o papel do futebol ultrapassa os limites do cenário de competição esportiva, e adentra como elemento componente da estrutura cultural da sociedade. Tendo em vista o panorama histórico do desenvolvimento do futebol no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, mais precisamente no município de Porto Alegre, o presente trabalho tem como objetivo compreender como ocorreu o processo histórico de desenvolvimento dos espaços esportivos dos clubes que ofereceram a prática do futebol em Porto Alegre na primeira metade do século XX. Para a realização desta pesquisa histórica, utilizaram-se os preceitos metodológicos da história cultural, em uma pesquisa documental através de fontes impressas, tais como a Revista do Globo, os jornais "Correio do Povo" entre outros que circularam na cidade de Porto Alegre na época do estudo, bem como obras que abordem a história do futebol em Porto Alegre. Analisando as fontes, o trabalho apresenta a existência de três diferentes fases pelas quais passaram os espaços esportivos dos clubes de futebol em Porto Alegre: a primeira, entre 1903 e 1909, onde foram formados os primeiros espaços para a prática do futebol, através dos clubes ligados ao associativismo esportivo germânico; a segunda, que compreende os anos 1910, 1920 e 1930 onde se organizaram novos clubes, novos estádios e campeonatos, através de uma abertura do esporte às outras etnias presentes na cidade, saindo dos círculos aristocráticos com o surgimento de campos e estádios em bairros operários e populares; e uma terceira, nos anos 1940 e 1950, adentrando nos anos 1960, onde ocorreram a construção dos grandes estádios da cidade, reflexo da massificação e popularização do futebol e particularmente a preponderância de dois clubes, Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto-Alegrense e Sport Club Internacional. / Sporting spaces of football clubs are proeminent buildings in the landscape, whose function involves feelings and passions in the audience that lives daily the most popular sport in Brazil, turning the stadiums and football grounds in a kind of pilgrimage temple and a representative historic and cultural heritage of the place where it is inserted. In Brazil, and more pricesely in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the role of football goes beyond the limits of sport competition scenario, and becomes part of the cultural structure of the society. Considering the historical background of the development of football in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, more precisely in the city of Porto Alegre, this study aims to understand how was the historical process of development of sports spaces of the clubs that offered the practice of football in Porto Alegre in the first half of the twentieth century. To the realization of this historical research, the methodological principles of cultural history were used, in a documentary research through printed sources such as the "Revista do Globo", the newspaper "Correio do Povo" and others that circulated in Porto Alegre at the time of the study, as well papers that talks about the history of football in Porto Alegre. Analyzing the sources, the work shows the existence of three different phases of the spaces of football clubs in Porto Alegre: The first, between 1903 and 1909, which were formed the first spaces to the practice of football, through the clubs linked to the germanic sports associationalism; the second, comprising the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, in which new clubs, stadiums and leagues are organized, through an opening of the sport to others ethnic groups present in the city, leaving the aristocratic circles by the appearance of fields and stadiums in working-class and popular neighborhoods; and a third in the 1940s and 1950s, entering in the 1960s, where occurred the construction of the biggest stadiums the city, reflecting the massification and popularization of football and especially the preponderance of two clubs, “Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto-Alegrense” and “Sport Club Internacional.”