Sport events have been impacted by the horrific events of 9/11 and they have been increasingly considered as a likely terrorist target. Sport event providers, thus, have to implement heightened security preparation and safety management. South Korea is going to host several large scale sporting events in the near future. The South Korean government has an overbearing duty to provide a safe and secure environment to all stakeholders involved. However, there is still a controversy about invasions of individual privacy because heightened security activities (i.e., bag search, pat-down search, body scanner) may not be fan friendly. In this study, the authors examined and found current issues regarding with safety and security management at sporting events. For example, the 22 professionals who are associated with collegiate sport safety operation answered that 100% of them do bag checks at gates, 27% had bag size requirements, and 14% used bomb sniffing dogs as a result of 9/11. Interestingly, 9% said that they no longer use volunteers at entrance gates due to heightened measure concerns. Under a consideration of more rigorous and intelligent systems, new technology (e.g., face recognition, unmanned aerial surveillance systems) needs to be appropriately utilized at mega sporting events. Additionally, sport facility and event managers should protect spectator privacy with using invasive monitoring technologies.
Safety and security management, mega sport events, balancing security and fan experience, privacy invasion
