The Role of Italian Local Public Administrations in Sport Activities: do they “Lead” the Governance of Sport or are they “Guided” by the “Median Voter”?

Sport is nowadays seen as a tool for generating values such as team spirit, solidarity, tolerance, and fair play, contributing to personal development and fulfilment. Local Public Authorities should contribute in promoting sport activities at all levels, governing the relations with stakeholders and being the main plank for a large development of sport activities, at all levels and ages, among citizens. On the other hand, the word sport (especially for sports that have such a great following to be defined “national sport”) is often associated with the governance of supporters activities, events organization, and so on. This acceptation concerns with the development of sport as a “show”. Both these acceptation are among Local public Administrations duties. This paper intends to look at how Italian local public administrations deal with these aspects analysing the last two years activity of 20 local Italian municipalities, of medium dimension. Results, both in terms of municipal activity and much more in terms of resources allocation, show a much greater consideration, by the investigated municipalities, of sport as a “show” rather than as a tool for health-enhancing, being the municipalities’ interest on the development of sport activities, pushed in the background.