Social network analysis in sport research: an emerging paradigm

Abstract

While network analysis is a major methodological approach in many disciplines of the social and natural sciences, it has only recently come into the focus of sport researchers. This article assesses the utility of network analysis to analyze sport phenomena. We begin with an overview of social network analysis (SNA) and related concepts. To explore research topics and approaches, we conduct a systematic review of empirical literature of SNA and its application to sport. Based on this review, we provide a six-dimensional conceptual typology of SNA applications in sport – competition networks, interaction networks, inter-organizational networks, intra-organizational networks, affiliation networks and social environments. Potential future directions for this promising approach in sport research are discussed.

Keywords:

• Social network analysis
• network science
• sport research
• systematic review
• conceptual typology of sport networks

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hagen Wäsche is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sports and Sport Sciences at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. His research interests lie in the fields of sport management, organization theory, sport sociology and the analysis of networks in sport. He is vice-chairman of the committee ‘Sport and Space’ of the German Society of Sport Science.

Geoff Dickson is an Associate Professor in the School of Sport and Recreation at Auckland University of Technology. His research interests include sport governance, and inter-organizational relationships. He is a former president of the Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.

Alexander Woll is a Full Professor of Sport and Health at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KT) and head of the Department of Sports and Sports Science. His main interests lie in the analysis of psycho-social determinants of physical activity and the examination of effects on motor, social, cognitive and health development over the life span. Further on he is interested in the optimization of methods and statistical analysis to capture sports activities, particularly in social networks. He is chairman of the committee ‘Health’ of the German Society of Sport Science and member of the expert group ‘Physical Activity Promotion’ of the German Federal Ministry of Health.

Ulrik Brandes is a Professor of Algorithmics at the University of Konstanz. His main interests lie in the analysis, visualization, and modelling of networks, and social networks in particular. He is an area editor for Network Science, associate editor for Social Networks, and a board member of the International Network of Social Network Analysis (INSNA).

Notes

1 Despite the concern that there is a lack of a network theory, we note the substantial progress towards an integrated theoretical approach. See White (1992, 2008), Emirbayer (1997), Fuhse (2009), Wellman and Berkowitz (1988) for elaborations of network-theoretical approaches, and Borgatti and Halgin (2011) for research implications.

2 In this paper, the term ‘soccer’ is used for association football in order to avoid confusion with American football.

3 Jacob Moreno, in his seminal work ‘Who shall survive?’ (Moreno 1934, 213), presented a sociogram of a school’s football team. The sociogram was based on mutual attraction. Moreno drew the conclusion that lack of cooperation and support may explain poor on-field performance. While we cannot be sure whether this was the first application of network thinking to the field of sports, Moreno’s case shows that that sport was an applied field of network analysis from the very beginning.

4 However, a review showed the utility of SNA for health behaviour and physical activity research (MacDonald-Wallis, Jago, & Sterne, 2012).

5 The starting point of the review was in 2013. Because our search yielded enough material to organize the potential scope of the use of SNA in sport research we did not extend our search to papers published later.

6 Gould and Gatrell’s study of the Liverpool vs. Manchester United cup final of 1977 (Gould and Gatrell 1980) is another example of an early structural analysis in the field of sports, although not a network analysis in the strict sense.

7 While groups of authors clearly fall into the category of organizations, single authors of scientific papers do not. Hence, single authors would have to be considered as nodes in interpersonal networks. However, in most bibliometric networks groups of authors and single authors are connected (e.g. through citing each other), why we decided for reasons of simplicity to use just one term – Inter-organizational Networks – for these kind of networks.