Abstract
The contribution focuses on the motivation of volunteers to actively participate in the Olympic Festivals project organized in the Czech Republic during the Olympic Games and their preferences in terms of material and non-material benefits provided by the organizer. It describes the specific involvement of volunteers in the Olympic Festival in Brno in the winter of 2022. It highlights the need to have knowledge of the different motives of volunteers to sign up and participate in the event itself. Olympic Festivals last 17 days and the event's organisation requires long-term involvement from volunteers.
It compares the results of a questionnaire survey of volunteers involved in 2021 and 2022 with the same survey results conducted in 2019. The main research question was whether there is a significant difference in the variables of interest (motivations, benefits) between the two surveys. Only one major circumstance differentiates these surveys, and that is the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which completely stopped the organisation of major sporting events for a certain period of time in 2020-21, and still brought restrictions on participation in February 2022, whether related to the number of visitors or restrictions for the organising team, such as the obligation to vaccinate.