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ABSTRACT
Research question: The aim of this article is to analyse which objectives the national sport associations are pursuing with the introduction of league systems, which league constructs were chosen in order to adjust the league systems to the peculiarities of individual sports, and which enabling effects the specific construction of the league systems should have for the development of high-performance sport in individual sports.
Research methods: For data collection first a document analysis was carried out, based on published league statutes and regulations from all 42 currently existing individual sport leagues in Germany. Second, qualitative problem-focused interviews with league organisers from 18 individual sports (36 interviews in total) were conducted. For the data analysis, a qualitative and quantitative content analysis was executed.
Results: The leagues within individual sports are primarily concerned with sporting and organisational objectives. They supplement the individual competition system in a beneficial way: they enable the athletes to improve their sporting performance by taking part in regular (team) competitions at differentiated performance levels, strengthen the clubs as institutions educating sporting talents and provide opportunities to the clubs and the national sport associations to promote the sport towards athletes, spectators, sponsors and the media.
Implications: The structural comparison aids the individual sport associations in optimising league governance to fortify the league's contribution to the development of high-performance sport. From a scientific perspective, the fundamental explorative work in this new research field contributes to the literature on the governance of sport leagues by adding findings about a competition format known from team sport to a new context.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. In the league format, competitions can only be put into practice as team competitions. The league system encompasses the staging of a contention for the championship among a determined number and selection of teams, each of which competes against every other team in the race according to a specific set of rules and within a specific time period (season). The goal is to determine the relative level of performance of every team and therefore establish a winner (Franck, Citation1995; Vrooman, Citation1995). The contention for the championship is based on particular competitions no longer being viewed alongside each other in an isolated manner, but being related to each other in the context of a championship, which creates a seasonal suspense (Noll, Citation2003). The group of teams organising the championship is called the league.
2. Interviews with league organisers took place as follows:
• men's individual sport leagues: boxing, carambola (variant of billiards played with three balls, that don't have to be potted), pool-billiards, snooker, squash, windsurfing and wrestling
• men's and women's leagues separately: golf, gymnastics, judo, rowing, swimming, table tennis, tennis and triathlon
• mixed team leagues: badminton, sailing and shooting.