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Seth Kirby

Dr Seth Kirby

Senior Lecturer

School of Science & Technology

Staff Group(s)
Sport

Role

Seth is the module leader across various sport and leisure management areas, including event management. He specialises in sport management with a research focus on event impacts, international sport marketing and sporting event legacies.

Career overview

Seth is the Co-Founder of the Ultra Running Research Network (URRN) - an international group of academics and practitioners working on ultra running marathons across the world. In 2022, he was awarded his PhD in mega sporting events from Anglia Ruskin University. Prior to joining Nottingham Trent University, he worked at Sheffield Hallam University, Leeds Beckett University and Anglia Ruskin University. Seth’s professional background is in marketing, communications and events.

Research areas

  • Event impacts and legacy
  • Mega sporting events
  • Small sport and leisure businesses and marketing

External activity

Media contributions

Seth has written, contributed to and been featured in media outlets such as Sky News:

17 Sport - Sport and climate action report (November 2021).

The sustainability crisis of the Olympic Games. SportBusiness (September 2021).

Tokyo Olympics: Are organisers prioritising revenue over safety as cases of COVID-19 surge?

Tokyo 2020: with no spectators, local sponsors lose out. The Conversation (July 2021). Republished in Fast Company.

Membership of professional bodies

Seth is a member of bodies including the European Association for Sport Management, Leisure Studies Association and The Football Collective. Additionally, he is the Co-Founder of the Ultra Running Research Network (URRN).

Scholarly activities

Seth is a reviewer for journals including Managing Sport and Leisure, and Event Management.

Publications

Kirby, S. I., Duignan, M. B., (2020). Searching for Sites of Liminality in Giga-Events. In: Lamond, I. R., Moss, J., (eds). Liminality and Critical Event Studies: Borders, Boundaries, and Contestation. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 99-118. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40256-3_6

Wise, N., Kirby, S. I., (2020). A ‘home away from home’: the (London) Jaguars and the NFL’s established international presence—a semi-deterritorialization approach. Sport in Society. 23 (1), 72-87. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2018.1555220

Kirby, S. I., Crabb, L. A. H., (2019). Priming Host City Physical Legacy Plans: The Bidding Chronicles of Brazil’s Derailed Sporting Event Infrastructure Projects. Event Management. 23 (4/5), 627-640. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599519X15506259855724

Kirby, S. I., Duignan, M. B., McGillivray, D., (2018). Mega-sport Events, Micro and Small Business Leveraging: Introducing the “MSE-MSB Leverage Model”. Event Management. 22 (6), 917-931. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599518X15346132863184

Duignan, M. B., Kirby, S. I., O’Brien, D., Everett, S., (2018). From ‘clone towns’ to ‘slow towns’: Examining festival legacies. Journal of Place Management and Development. 11 (3), 350-366. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMD-07-2017-0071

Selected conference presentations

Birmingham 2022, Satellite Sites and Local Organisational Development: The Legacy Of The Cycling Time Trial On The Black Country Region. 31st European Association for Sport Management (EASM) Conference, 12-15 September 2023, Belfast, UK.

Birmingham 2022, Small Business Access And Enterprise Development. 30th EASM Conference, 5-8 September 2022, Innsbruck, Austria.

Facilitating digital assessment participation: A case study of Twitter application across sport management students. Trent Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT) Flexible and Online Learning Group Symposium. 12 May 2021, Nottingham, UK.

See all of Dr Seth I. Kirby's publications...

Press expertise

  • Mega sporting event impacts and legacies
  • Events and urban space
  • International sports marketing

Sustainable Development Goals

I support these SDGs

3 - Good Health and Well-Being Badge 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Badge 13 - Climate Action Badge 17 - Partnerships For The Goals Badge