The Impact Of The 12^th National Games On The Sport Participation Intention Of Shenyang Citizens

The National Games of the People’s Republic of China(hereafter referred as ‘N ational Games’), the largest in scale and the most competitive domestic sport event held every 4-year in China, has long been a platform for "training the new, selecting the talent", a integral part of China’s Olympic Strategy which is of great significance in the development of competitive sports. However, over the 54 years history of the National Games, it has witnessed a strategic shift from an elite sport model to concentrate on mass sport participation, an indication of a gigantic move from high-performance competition to sport participation on population.Ostensibly, the 12 th National Games has the capacity and potentiality to enhance the host city residents’ intention to take part in sports. With the 12 th National Games slogan being "All Participate in Sports and Together Share the Games ", Shenyang takes full advantage of hosting the National Games, focusing on mass sports, fitness programs, and striving to achieve the fitness goals it set when successfully bid for the Games.Based on the Theory of Reasoned Action(TRA), the Theory of Planned Behavior(TPB) and the Theory of Sport Commitment(TSC), this study adopted 8 variables that affected the participation in sports, namely sports basic knowledge, sense of city identity, sport cognition, joy of participation, personal investment, opportunity to participate, option to participate, social constraints through literature review, expert interviews, questionnaires, statistic analysis. Using the residents of Shenyang city as the sample of the study, this paper came up with hypotheses in terms of the 8 variables and sport participation intention. After data collection and analysis, the hypotheses are tested and verified.The results showed that the 12 th National Games imposed a positive impact on Shenyang residents’ sport participation intention; by and large, the 12 th National Games influenced participation intention mostly through the sense of city identity, the joy of participation and social constraints; however, it did not affect people’s option to participate and failed to alleviate the sport participation(leisure) constraints in sport; additionally, in the short term, the sport participation intention during the Games, was mainly influenced by the joy of participation and sport cognition, but in the long run, the sport participation intention after the National Games was mainly influenced by sports basic knowledge and social constraints.In conclusion, it is indicated that the sport event related policies to promote mass sports participation and the long-term plan designed to improve sport participation should be an organic whole. In addition, this study also provides implications and suggestions from governmental, business, media and personal perspective in order to offer an empirical reference for the future use of National Games and other hosting cities with an aim to stimulate sport participation.