The role of advocacy organisations for ethical mega sport events

We interviewed advocacy organisations campaigning for human rights.We explore the roles and relationships between mega sport event stakeholders with respect to human rights.We found that mega sport event stakeholders recognize the importance of, and accept responsibility for, human rights.We found that building trust with, while protecting the independence of, advocacy organisations is important.We found that advocacy organizations have moved away from shaming to a more collaborative approach with awarding bodies.We recommend that event governance and monitoring need to be implemented before and after the event.Non-governmental organisations have sought to enshrine progressive and ethical principles, protocols, and practices into governance arrangements for mega sport events. Evidence on whether, and how, they influence awarding bodies and events for the better, however, is scarce. Two research questions guided the present research: What role human rights advocacy organisations play at different stages of the event lifecycle? What is the nature of relationships between advocacy organisations and event awarding bodies to ensure that human rights are effectively embedded into decision-making processes? The authors conducted interviews with representatives from three advocacy organisations campaigning for human rights, two event awarding bodies and two intermediary organisations. A thematic analysis revealed four central themes: accepting responsibility for human rights; considering events as human-rights leveraging opportunity; facilitating within-coalition balance and independence of advocacy organisations; and implementing good governance and structural change. The findings contribute to the understanding of advocacy organisations within the sport event context by identifying relevant roles and relationships (including success factors and burdens on human rights).