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Diverse international authors describe the importance of sports for a metropolitan region.

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Metropolitan Region as a scientific term comes from the outside of sports sciences. In our terms there are many open questions like what is meant by this term at other fields and what are the new scientific findings? One key perception is that cities, which size ever, are surrounded by other communities, so there is exchange in all daily spheres of live. (Mega-)Cities lie in the midst of or build the centres of greater agglomerations. Because of the concentration of people there are a lot of offers for them - and, of course, not only for them! Exchanges between the city itself and the suburbs are present through work and through leisure. Sports in all kinds and at every level is also included. This is on the first sight easy to understand: The city has the arenas and/or stadia, the city has the clubs, which present top sports for bigger masses, and so on. And, not at least, cities use sports for all and for top athletes to fill the own sports infrastructure as well to get the attention of the people of the suburbs - and, if there corresponds the interests - of people all over the world. So, there is a competition for spectacular and unique sports offers among (mega-)cities.
But how do the regions decide to bid for sports events? The cities are independent, have their own budgets and their own conception for the future. But a city cannot decide by itself, it needs the engagement of the population, and the cooperation with sports organisations, where the population has its homes and local memberships. Cooperation therefore is one of the most important principle to be successful in the formation of a metropolitan region. The collection inside this publication is one of the first dispositions to make clear how metropolitan regions try to use sports for their development. Are there new cooperations inside a metropolitan region, when we discuss sports? Are there new concepts between political and sport-specific institutions? And, at least, are there new kinds of competitions by the metropolitan regions to get more and high popular sports events? Cooperation inside and competition between metropolitan regions could be the point; what effects does it show for the development of metropolitan regions, but also for sports?
Different authors from elsewhere give an insight on their metropolitan regions (Tokyo, New York, Rotterdam, Milano, Rhine-Ruhr etc.) in connection with sports.

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Diplom in Soziologie sowie Magister Artium der Sportwissenschaften (J.W. Goethe Universität Frankfurt); Prodekan der Fakultät für Wirtschaft sowie Bereichsleiter Sportmanagement der SRH Hochschule Heidelberg; bis 2001 Referatsleiter für den Bereich Bildung, Gesundheit und Wissenschaft im Deutschen Sportbund e. V.; bbis 1993 Geschäftsführer der Fair-Play Initiative des deutschen Sports bei der Deutschen Olympischen Gesellschaft; bis 1980 wissenschaftlicher Angestellter für die Koordination des Sportentwicklungshilfeprojektes "Aufbau eines Nationalen Sportinstitutes iin Lagos/Nigeria; bis 1971 Verwaltungsbeamter der Stadt Frankfurt/M. Lehrbeauftragter u.a. an der Universität Heidelberg sowie am Rhein-Ahr Campus Remagen; Herausgeber und Autor diverser Veröffentlichungen zu Forschungsthemen.

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