The significance of plus-development through sport: the practices and neoliberal politics of attracting participants to corporate sport-for-development

Abstract Despite significant growth in the sport-for-development (SFD) sector, there has been little research to date examining the ways that SFD organizations attract communities, and/or the reasons that SFD organizations are able to attract and retain community members in their programmes. The purpose of this study was to explore how and why Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) Launchpad, an SFD facility in downtown Toronto, attracted participants into its programmes, and to understand how and why community members took up the offer to engage in its programmes. Using ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews with Launchpad staff, we found that ‘development’ activities, with little or no sport component to them at all, were, in many instances, the main attraction to participants at MLSE Launchpad, a phenomenon that we term ‘plus-development.’ In these cases, what attracted participants to MLSE Launchpad were programmes that, in practice, filled gaps in basic social and community service provisions. We use these findings to advance some critical insights about the broader neoliberal structures under which programmes like MLSE Launchpad operate, and the significance of SFD for and within urban communities.