The Geography of Sport Management Research in the first half of 2024

The Geography of Sport Management Research in the first half of 2024

Xiaoyan Xing

Introduction

We continued our analysis of the settings in which sport management (SM) research occurs, as well as the geographical distribution of SM knowledge production for articles published in the first half of 2024 across the ten targeted journals. Our analysis focuses specifically on the research context; therefore, we only included studies that collected first-hand empirical data related to specific settings, while excluding reviews, conceptual papers, and other types of publications. During the covered period, we collected a sample of 239 published articles, of which 196 were empirical studies. To maintain consistency in our analysis, we utilized the same coding protocol for examining the geography of SM research that was previously employed in earlier issues of the Sport Management Digest (SMD).

Geography of the SM research settings

We explored the geography of SM research settings along two dimensions: sport domains and individual sports. We also charted each dimension against the continents where the research was conducted to achieve a geographical understanding.
We use the term "sport domain" to refer to the various forms through which sport is delivered, as well as the key stakeholders involved in these processes. To recap, the 10 sport domains are professional sport, collegiate athletics (also school sport in general), sport events (including all types such as mega-events, major-events, and mass participant sport events), sport organizations (including non-profit sport clubs, national and international sport organizations), community sport / sport for development (SFD), elite sport (also competitive sport), sport industry (also commercial sport), sport consumers (including spectators, participants, and consumers of general nature), sport media (referring to thecommunity sport/sport for development (6%), sport consumers (6%), and the sport industry/commercial sport (5%). The remaining two domains each accounted for a small percentage. This distribution pattern across the ten sport domains has remained consistent in our analyses published in previous issues of SMD, particularly highlighting the predominance of a professional sport context in addressing various SM research questions.

Figure 1. The distribution of sport domains

In terms of utilizing media content as a data source, 13% (26) of the examined articles fall into this category. These articles are distributed across the following domains: professional sport (13), sport events (8), collegiate athletics (3), and elite sport (2).
Table 1 reports the distribution of sport domains across continental contexts. North America continues to be the continental context with the highest number of articles (44.9%), followed by Europe (24.0%) and Asia (15.8%). Studies situated in an international context accounted for 6.6% of the total. Oceania and cross-continental contexts contributed 3.1% and 2.6% of the studies, respectively. The presence of studies situated in Africa (2.0%) and Central and South America (1.0%) remains minimal.
The domain distribution across continental contexts revealed the following features:
The highest number of articles in the domain of professional sport originated from North America, followed by Europe and Asia.
During the covered period, all studies situated in collegiate athletics came from North America.
Asia continues to lead in the number of articles in the domain of sport events, with North America and Europe also being significant contributors to this domain.
Europe has the highest number of articles in the domains of sport organizations and elite sport.
North America also accounted for the greatest number of articles in the domains of community sport/SFD and sport consumers.

Table 1. Sport domains across continental contexts

Continental context
Sport domain	NA	EU	OC	AS	AF	CSA	CC	IN	Total
Professional Sport	36	19	2	11	1	0	1	5	75
Professional Sport (%)	48.0	25.3	2.7	14.7	1.3	0.0	1.3	6.7	100.0
Sport events	6	6	1	9	0	1	2	3	28
Sport events (%)	21.4	21.4	3.6	32.1	0.0	3.6	7.1	10.7	100.0
Collegiate Athletics	25	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	25
Collegiate Athletics (%)	100.0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	100.0
Elite sport	1	6	1	3	0	0	1	2	14
Elite sport (%)	7.1	42.9	7.1	21.4	0.0	0.0	7.1	14.3	100.0
Sport Organizations	3	6	1	1	0	1	0	1	13
Sport Organizations (%)	23.1	46.0	7.7	7.7	0.0	7.7	0.0	7.7	100.0
Community sport/SFD	5	3	0	1	2	0	0	1	12
Community sport/SFD (%)	41.7	25.0	0.0	8.3	16.7	0.0	0.0	8.3	100.0
Sport Consumers	4	3	0	2	1	0	1	0	11
Sport Consumers (%)	36.4	27.3	0.0	18.2	9.1	0.0	9.1	0.0	100.0
Sport industry	3	2	0	3	0	0	0	1	9
Sport industry (%)	42.9	28.6	14.3	14.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	100.0
Other	3	2	1	1	0	0	0	0	7
Other (%)	42.9	28.6	14.3	14.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	100.0
Sport media	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
Sport media (%)	100.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	100.0
Total	88	47	6	31	4	2	5	13	196
Total (%)	44.9	24.0	3.1	15.8	2.0	1.0	2.6	6.6	100.0

Note: NA = North America; EU = Europe; OC = Oceania; AS = Asia; AF = Africa; CSA = Central and South America; CC = Cross-continental; IN = International.

In terms of the specific sports that contextualized the sports management research settings, a significant portion of articles (37%) were situated in a multi-sports context or did not specify particular sports associated with the sport domain (see Figure 2). In studies set within a multi-sport context, the common combination of sports typically includes those associated with professional leagues, such as American football, soccer, basketball, ice hockey, and baseball.
As illustrated in Figure 2, soccer remained the most popular sport as SM research settings, followed by multi-sport events (typically associated with the Olympic and Paralympic Games), American football, basketball, e-sports, baseball, and running. Sports that appeared in only one article during this period included cricket, mixed martial arts (MMA), tennis, car racing, Australian football, and judo.

Figure 2. The distribution of specific sports

Table 2 presents the continental distribution of the top nine sports featured in the articles published during this period. It is not surprising that Europe continues to account for the majority of articles focusing on soccer (association football) in research settings, while North America hosts all articles using American football as the study setting and the majority of those on basketball. A significant number of articles related to multi-sport events, such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games, primarily originate from Asia, followed by North America. With the upcoming inauguration of the first Olympic E-sports Games in 2025 in Saudi Arabia, research in the e-sport context continues to gain traction, with North America and Asia being the leading regions for these articles.

Table 2. Specific sport by continental context

Continental context
Sport	NA	EU	OC	AS	AF	CSA	CC	IN	Total
Soccer	4	19	0	6	3	0	1	3	36
Multi-sport event	4	2	1	6	0	1	2	1	17
American football	15	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	15
Basketball	12	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	13
e-sport	3	1	0	3	1	0	0	0	8
Baseball	4	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	6
Running	3	1	0	2	0	0	0	0	6
Fitness	2	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	5
Golf	2	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	5

Note: NA = North America; EU = Europe; OC = Oceania; AS = Asia; AF = Africa; CSA = Central and South America; CC = Cross-continental; IN = International.

Geography of SM knowledge production

The geography of SM knowledge production addresses two key questions: (1) What is the relationship between the continental context of the articles and the geographical location of the authors' institutional affiliations? and (2) How are the articles published by the ten targeted journals distributed geographically in terms of their continental contexts?
In addressing the first question, we focus on three patterns of the geographical context-author relationship: (1) consistent geographical alignment between context and author location, (2) inconsistent geographical alignment, and (3) cross-continental collaborative authorship, which may either concentrate on a single continental context or span multiple continents.
As illustrated in Table 3, articles based in the Global North are most likely to demonstrate a consistent geographical alignment with authors affiliated withinstitutions on the same continent. The percentages for these articles are 89.8% for North America, 85.1% for Europe, and 66.7% for Oceania, respectively.

Table 3. Continental context versus author institutional affiliation

Continental context	Author institutional affilation
	NA	EU	OC	AS	AF	CC
NA (%)	79 (89.9)	2 (2.3)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	7 (8.0)	88 (100.0)
EU (%)	1 (2.1)	40 (85.1)	0 (0.0)	1 (2.1)	0 (0.0)	5 (10.6)	47 (100.0)
OC (%)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	4 (66.7)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	2 (33.3)	6 (100.0)
AS (%)	5 (16.1)	4 (12.9)	1 (3.2)	8 (25.8)	0 (0.0)	13 (41.9)	31 (100.1)
AF (%)	1 (25.0)	1 (25.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	1 (25.0)	1 (25.0)	4 (100.1)
CSA (%)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	2 (100.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	2 (100.0)
CC (%)	0 (0.0)	1 (20.0)	1 (20.0)	1 (20.0)	0 (0.0)	2 (40.0)	5 (100.0)
IN (%)	3 (23.1)	5 (38.5)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	5 (38.5)	13 (100.0)
Total (%)	89 (45.4)	53 (27.0)	8 (4.1)	10 (5.1)	1 (0.5)	35 (17.9)	196 (100.0)

Notes: 1. NA = North America; EU = Europe; OC = Oceania; AS = Asia; AF = Africa; CSA = Central and South America; CC = Cross-continental; IN = International. 2. Author institutional affiliations in cross-continental authorships covered all six continents.To address the second question, we analyse the distribution of continental contexts in the articles published by the targeted journals during the covered period.

Conversely, articles set in the Global South are more likely to exhibit inconsistent geographical alignment. Notably, both articles from Central and South America were authored by researchers based in Oceania. Among the four articles focused on Africa, only one exhibited consistent geographical alignment.
Finally, a significant number of articles featuring cross-continental collaborative authorship were found in studies based in Asia (13), followed by North America (7), and those utilizing an international context (5).
For articles featuring a North America context, JSM (57.1%), SMR (52.0%), IJSC (52.6%), JSE (57.7%), and C&S (53.6%) have published a higher proportion of these articles compared to the average for the journals (42.9%).
Articles situated in Europe with an average percentage of 20.8% across the ten journals, are more likely to appear in ESMQ (35.9%), IJSF (37.5%), and IJSPP (35.3%).

Table 4. Continental contexts of articles from the 10 journals

Continental context
	NA	EU	OC	AS	AF	CSA	CC	IN	Total
JSM	12	2	2	2	0	0	3	0	21
%	57.1	9.5	9.5	9.5	0.0	0.0	14.3	0.0	100.0
SMR	13	2	3	3	1	0	1	2	25
%	52.0	8.0	12.0	12.0	4.0	0.0	4.0	8.0	100.0
IJSMS	7	4	0	10	0	0	0	0	21
%	33.3	19.0	0.0	47.6	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	100.0
ESMQ	9	14	3	5	1	1	3	3	39
%	23.1	35.9	7.7	12.8	2.6	2.6	7.7	7.7	100.0
IJSF	3	3	0	0	0	0	0	2	8
%	37.5	37.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	25.0	100.0
IJSC	10	2	1	3	0	0	3	0	19
%	52.6	10.5	5.3	15.8	0.0	0.0	15.8	0.0	100.0
IJSPP	4	6	2	1	0	1	1	2	17
%	23.5	35.3	11.8	5.9	0.0	5.9	5.9	11.8	100.0
JSE	15	4	0	1	0	0	3	3	26
%	57.7	15.4	0.0	3.8	0.0	0.0	11.5	11.5	100.0
C&S	15	6	0	4	0	0	2	1	28
%	53.6	21.4	0.0	14.3	0.0	0.0	7.1	3.6	100.0
JGSM	9	4	1	4	1	0	1	2	22
%	40.9	18.2	4.5	18.2	4.5	0.0	4.5	9.1	100.0
Total	97	47	12	33	3	2	17	15	226
%	42.9	20.8	5.3	14.6	1.3	0.9	7.5	6.6	100.0

Note: NA = North America; EU = Europe; OC = Oceania; AS = Asia; AF = Africa; CSA = Central and South America; CC = Cross-continental; IN = International.

IJSMS contributed the largest portion of articles situated in an Asian context with a percentage of 47.6% in relation to the journal average of 14.6%. Articles with an Asian context also tends to appear in JGSM (18.2%) and IJSC (15.8%).
Articles using a cross-continental setting are mainly housed by IJSC (15.8%), JSM (14.3%), JSE (11.5%) and ESMQ (7.7%).

Conclusions

This analysis found that the 196 articles published by the ten SM journals in the first half of 2024 exhibit pattern of research settings and SM knowledge production consistent with findings published in previous SMD issues. Most notably, the domains of professional sport, sport events, and collegiate athletics, along with the sports of soccer, American football, and basketball, are the most likely to provide the settings for SM research. Most of these studies are situated in North America, followed by Europe and Asia. In terms of knowledge production, articles set in the Global North tend to have aligned locations between the study’s continental context and the authors’ affiliated institutions, whereas inconsistent alignment is more likely to be observed in articles set in the Global South. Additionally, cross-continental authorship is most prevalent in articles situated in an Asian context. The journals’ preferences for studies in various contexts generally reflect their geographical origins, with North American journals, such as JSM, and European journals, such as ESMQ, publishing the highest number of articles based in their respective continents. Nonetheless, while JGSM is the only Asian journal, studies situated in an Asian context can readily find publishing outlets in journals based in other continents. Notably, among the articles covered in this analysis, the highest number focused on Asia has been published by IJSMS, whose publisher is based in the UK, followed by ESMQ.