Sports Geography Research Articles

The state-of-the-art in sport tourism geographies

The geography of sport offers valuable theoretical and conceptual frames to inform the study of sport-related tourism. While all sports share fundamental aspects such as rule structures, elements of competition and aspects of physical play, the manifestations of these dimensions of sport are enormously diverse. Sport and tourism are socially constructed phenomena. The constant evolution of sports in different societies raise a spectacular array of opportunities – and challenges - for tourism development. This review paper explores the development of the field of sport tourism over time, tracing the academic study of sport tourism to two seminal pieces of work that were published in 1989. It reviews current and emerging avenues of research in this dynamic field, highlighting gaps in the literature that focus particularly on the environmental and technological dimensions of sport tourism. We conclude that the social, economic, technological and political forces of change in our societies will continue to reshape (and be reshaped by) the geographies of sport and tourism.

Teaching sports geography

ABSTRACT This short essay introduces the symposium “Teaching sports geography”. The six papers that make up this symposium represent the first substantive interventions into the pedagogies of sports geography. Sports geography has a rich research literature that is briefly reviewed, before the paper goes on to consider enduring concerns that sports geographers have pursued over several decades. The paper also notes some of the many opportunities and challenges associated with the teaching of sports geography, before going on the provide an overview of the six papers in the symposium. The paper ends by briefly outlining prospects for the teaching of sports geography. It also acknowledges the recent death of John Bale who was the preeminent pioneer and scholar of sports geography, to whom this collection of papers is dedicated.

Developing a geographies of sport module using an active blended learning approach

ABSTRACT This article reflects on the author’s experience of developing a standalone geographies of sport module that is taught using an active blended learning (ABL) approach. The article argues that an ABL pedagogy is an effective way of teaching meaningful sports geography to undergraduate students. It discusses how the approach allows a diverse range of relevant topics to be included, incorporating both “human” and “physical” geographies, and enables a personalised approach to learning. Teaching the geographies of sport provides students with opportunity to cement and enhance their understanding of fundamental geographical concepts whilst applying them to sports case studies that can be adapted to the interests of the student cohort. That is not to say that teaching of sports geographies comes without challenges, and this article reflects on some of those encountered. Most significantly, how to ensure that the module content is appropriate for final-year undergraduates as the body of dedicated geographical literature on sport is still comparatively limited.

Teaching geopolitics through sport

ABSTRACT This paper reflects on teaching sport in political geography undergraduate courses in the United States, through which I simultaneously aim to de-essentialize geopolitics and de-essentialize sport. I integrate sport examples in diverse courses on political geography and teach a dedicated “Geopolitics of Sport” course. By framing my approach to the political geographies of sport around the specific term “geopolitics,” I deliberately tap into a sense among Americans that it is a “more serious” topic than “geography.” Since students in my courses rarely come from Geography, but are primarily majors in Political Science and International Relations, “geopolitics” invites them to approach sports geography as a serious subject and to be more open to the field of geography. Since geography remains a neglected subject in US schools and universities, teaching sports geography through geopolitics, and geopolitics through sports geography, can be a powerful way to encourage critical geographic reasoning, especially among non-geography majors.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE GEOGRAPHIC ORIGINS AND MIGRATION PATTERNS OF ELITE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYERS

ABSTRACT John Rooney’s (1969) seminal geographical work on the origins of U.S. college football players showed how a comprehensive examination of player origins could be analyzed and presented. This study utilizes Rooney’s findings to compare changes in the origin and migration patterns 50 years after his work. The hometowns of 14,937 elite high school football players recruited to play for “Power 5” schools between 2010 and 2020 are analyzed. The findings reveal that substantially more elite players now originate in the southern states and migrate into areas that underproduced elite talent. The methods and results of this study contribute to the merging research fields of sports management and sports geography on geographic patterns and the migration of athletes and how they can change over periods of time.

Challenges of teaching sports geography in higher education

ABSTRACT Teaching sports geography in higher education on the surface seems like it would be a great course to draw students in, get them exposed to geographic concepts, tools, and techniques, and the perfect forum for using examples to which students can relate. However, there are few instances of a sports geography course being in a regular rotation of courses. A deeper look at why this is reveals some challenges both administratively and academically. This reflection paper discusses some of these issues from the perspective of faculty members in the U.S. higher educational setting as well as some challenges of including physical geography in such a course. Although students tend to understand how geography and sports are intertwined from human geography concepts, physical geography concepts are also an important part of this understanding and do not get a lot of attention during these types of discussions. This reflection does consider the many ways that physical geography needs to be part of academic courses on sports geography.

Spatiotemporal distribution and evolution pattern of Chinese Go League clubs in 20 years of professionalism.

Over the course of 20 years, from 1999 to 2018, the Chinese Go League has gradually developed and flourished, becoming a significant part of urban sports culture. Using mathematical statistics, spatiotemporal trajectory, and geospatial analysis, this research investigates the spatiotemporal distribution pattern and diffusive evolution characteristics of Chinese Go League clubs from the perspective of sports geography. The results of this study show that the following: (1) Over the past 20 years, the number of Chinese Go League clubs has increased in a "stepped" pattern, and there is still plenty of room for expansion. (2) Chinese Go League clubs are primarily located in municipalities directly under the central government and provincial capital cities (accounting for 82.6% of the total), with the Bohai Rim, Yangtze River Delta, and Southwest region of China forming a spatial pattern. (3) Host cities of Chinese Go League clubs are generally discrete, with clustering and random distribution occurring only seldom. The spatial distribution also tends to favor southern cities. (4) Chinese Go League clubs frequently change their names and host cities, and they have a variety of links with those cities, which primarily includes urban stability, urban transition, and urban fluctuation. In future, the professionalization and sustainable development of Chinese Go industry can be enhanced by the marketability of Chinese Go clubs, developing new markets for Chinese Go, and building a healthy development model with multiple linkages of Chinese Go clubs, sponsors, and host cities.

Spatialising Sport Management

ABSTRACT Sport and geography may be considered allied and complementary disciplines. They share, variously, interests in ideological and physical spaces, political and socio-cultural processes of space- and place-making, historical dis-/continuities, individual and collective identity formation, demography and topographies and representational practices therein. Sports geography modules may, for example, be taught independently within Geography, Sport Management/Studies/Science, Urban Studies, Development or Liberal Arts programmes, or form a bridge across shared degree/honours courses as a way of attracting an interdisciplinary audience of students. Regardless of institutional “home”, sports geography, affords a rich context for engaging students with critical contemporary issues, global-local analysis, and socio-cultural complexities and social justice concerns. We argue in this paper for a more pronounced place for sports geography – specifically, critical spatial studies – within Sports Management. We draw on our professional and personal experiences teaching sport and geography related courses. We contextualise the teaching of sports geography against wider Higher Education forces. Next we provide pedagogical illustrations of the benefits of a sports geography focus. We offer some recommendations and reflections. Ultimately, we advocate for improved collaboration between Sports Management and Geography fields, and call for continued scholarly and pedagogical symbiosis and play that might produce new and creative interdisciplinary inquiry.

Analysing Long Term Spatial Mobility Patterns of Individuals and Large Groups Using 3D‐GIS: A Sport Geographic Approach

AbstractIndividual mobility and human patterns analyses is receiving increasing attention in numerous interdisciplinary studies and publications using the concept of time‐geography but is largely unknown to the subdiscipline of sports geography. Meanwhile the visualization and evaluation of large data of individual patterns are still a major challenge. While a qualitative, microscale view on spatial‐temporal topics is more common in today's pattern research using mostly 24h time intervals, this work examines a quantitative approach focusing on an extended period of life. This paper presents a combination of time‐geographic approaches with 3D‐geoinformation systems and demonstrates their value for analysing individual mobility by implementing a path‐homogeneity factor (HPA). Using the example of professional athletes, it is shown which groups display greater similarities in their career paths. While a high homogeneity suggests that groups make similar decisions through socially influenced processes, low values allow the assumption that external processes provide stronger, independent individual structures.

The World Junior Short Track Speed Skating Championships 2018 in Tomaszów Mazowiecki: A sports geography perspective

The World Junior Short Track Speed Skating Championships 2018 in Tomaszów Mazowiecki: A sports geography perspective

“Daddy, Help Me; I Forgot How to Make a New Friend”: Emotional Geographies of Youth Sport in Pandemic Times

In what follows, the author directs attention to one slice of pandemic life and its interplay across the emotional geographies of childhood, parenthood, work-life balance, lockdowns, stress, mental health, and youth sport, for it is in these private if banal moments that the “everyday” experiences of the pandemic are made real—and reveal the tensions and dilemmas that individuals tried to negotiate—to differing levels of success.

Geografia dos Esportes: apontamentos para o ensino médio

Compreendido como uma atividade polissêmica e de caráter múltiplo, os esportes são grandes consumidores do espaço geográfico e por consequência, usufruem dos principais conceitos da Geografia, como por exemplo, o lugar, a paisagem, o território, entre outros, se vinculando cada vez mais à ciência geográfica. Existe uma interação entre ambos e ela ocorre no seio da sociedade. Considerando a Geografia dos Esportes como uma possibilidade de tratar esse fenômeno da sociedade contemporânea, cada vez mais estimulado pela mídia e também enraizado no imaginário popular, o presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar as variáveis que possibilitam aos alunos do ensino médio brasileiro, pensar o esporte como novo elemento de uma Geografia, que interage e interfere no consumo e no fazer cotidiano. De caráter geográfico, a pesquisa aborda uma discussão e revisão do tema para o ensino de Geografia em nível médio apontando sugestões para a sua prática. Conclui-se que os esportes são uma atividade heterogênea, fruto de uma territorialização que envolve complexas relações e que cativa o mundo e a sociedade de um modo geral, sendo percebidos como parte integrante de processos que envolvem a análise espacial e a caracterização socioeconômica e político cultural, elementos por excelência, geográficos.

Sports and Geography: Exploration for Spatial Approach

Purpose: Sports is an activity created by human beings and is related with natural and human environments, and it is a physical activity which inherently interacts with geographical properties. With the above views, it is clear that sports reflect human culture and physical environment, which are closely related to places or spaces in terms of origin, propagation and diffusion, or geography in a broader sense. This study explored the relationships between sporting activities and geography with an environmental view. Research design, data, and methodology: The study employed qualitative methodology to review the association between sport and geographical perspective. The study reviewed the broad documents including journals, periodicals, reports and so forth. Results: First, since its inception in the 1960s, research on sports geography has been steadily studied in many international geography and non-geographic research journals. Second, it reflects the distinct characteristics of the relationship between sports and geography (relationship with physical geography and humanities). Third, as a spatial approach to sports, it is the place of sports, globalization of sports, and the tourist attraction of sports. Conclusion: the findings of this study provides insights for sport geography and could be applied to the current sports industry. Further implications were discussed.

Vývoj pozície Medzinárodného maratónu mieru v Košiciach v systéme maratónov sveta a Európy

The aim of the paper is to analyse the position of the marathon in Košice in the system of world and European marathons. We provide an overview of trends of urban circuits of the tracks, the exponential growth of participants, the increase of the women runners and the age diversity of runners, the slowdown of average performances against the background of specific marathons, but at the same time constant improvement of the best performances. Following the example of a marathon in Košice, the paper analyses the geographical aspect of a sporting event in the wider context of other activities of the city of Košice (in recent years the European city in three spheres). We also emphasize comparison of marathons in Košice, Eindhoven and Ljubljana in terms of diversity, number of participants, foreign participation, and sponsors. To achieve this, we evaluate the literature in the field of sports geography, we select and analyse statistical data from event websites and we present them in the form of tables, graphs and maps. We draw attention to the growing importance of marathons as events affecting cities. The results confirm that the long tradition of the event is not enough to compete with much younger marathon runs in the cities of similar size such as Ljubljana and Eindhoven. The importance of the Košice Peace Marathon results from many factors, including long tradition, number of runners and spectators, number of foreign runners, geographical location, marketing, or financial benefits.

The folding of sport space into carceral space: On the making of prisoners’ experiences and lives

Sport and exercise are prominent activities in the daily routines of prisoners around the world, yet the spatial significance of these activities in carceral environments has not been deeply investigated. With a focus on the experiences of former federal prisoners in Canada, this paper addresses this scholarly gap by bringing together emerging trends in the literatures on sociology of sport, sports geography, and carceral geography to investigate the complex social meanings of prison sport and exercise. Specifically, we explore the folding of sports space into carceral space, often with the effect of reinforcing violent and exclusionary situations, but which also helps construct alternative spatial and temporal realities. Indeed, our overarching theoretical analysis considers how prisoners use sport to produce space in ways that assert a limited degree of agency over their daily lives and temporarily transcend their unpleasant conditions of confinement. By drawing from diverse theoretical frameworks and literatures, we advance novel arguments about the socio‐spatial significance of sport in prisons and raise some important questions for further research.

New Dimensions of Sport in Modern Europe: Perspectives from the ‘Long Twentieth Century’

This collection offers new perspectives on European sport history in the ‘long twentieth century’ designed to challenge and deconstruct what might be considered ‘traditional’ or more familiar Euro-centric conceptions and geographies of sport and leisure—especially those deriving from the leading hotbeds of European sport history. This special issue introduction adds to the growing corpus of explorations of sport and leisure in late-modern European history from a variety of countries: France, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovenia. With topics ranging from sport during empire to mega-events, sport literature to women's sport attire, and several different sports, the insight provided by this new research demonstrates a greater understanding of the connections between sport and society in the long twentieth century in Europe.

A ‘home away from home’: the (London) Jaguars and the NFL’s established international presence—a semi-deterritorialization approach

In 2012, the Jacksonville Jaguars announced they established a partnership with the city of London to play one home game each year. This article frames the Jaguars ‘home away from home’ to the London Jaguars amidst American sports expansion. Critical and conceptual reflections will be linked to sport, geography, neoliberalism and deterritorialization. This article contributes to the literature on sports geography as it ascribes and applies the notion of semi-deterritorialization. To analyse discussions and representations concerning the Jacksonville Jaguars in London, this work seeks out and evaluates meanings presented through online media to interpret the place and presence of the Jaguars in London. In line with the contribution of this article, interpreting meanings of territorialization in this case lead to new permutations of semi-deterritorialization based on the Jaguars temporary presence.

A prospect for the geographical research of sport in the age of Big Data

Along with the ever-accelerated update of computer science and techniques, the data-driven ‘computational social science’ has been blooming. But some important questions are: Will this trend bring any changes in sports geographical research? Which challenges will geographers have to encounter? This article briefly reviews the relationship between sport and Big Data before exploring some possible paradigm shifts in the area of sports geography. This article also argues that a new paradigm can have some significant impacts on the directions of research in the area of sports geography. A robust sports geographical study can be achieved by geographers seek to manage ethical, epistemological and methodological challenges in the age of Big Data to provide theoretically and empirically (re)constructed/informed geographical intelligence for modern sport.

Sports geography: new approaches, perspectives and directions

Within some disciplines, for example sociology, management, history, media and cultural studies, strong trends on sports research have been established. In some disciplinary spaces, however, intere...

Making “space” for women and girls in sport: an agenda for Australian geography

AbstractIn this article, I argue that there is need to rethink how sport is inherently spatial and political. I outline the importance of doing research on the spatiality of inequality in sport and consider the ways in which ideas about affective atmospheres and textures can support nuanced understandings of sport, particularly for girls and women. From change rooms to board rooms, sporting fields to dance halls, sport happens somewhere—it is inherently spatial. Australian geographers continue to make scholarly and practical impacts of social and cultural significance by focusing on spatiality, but the geography of sport has yet to be fully developed in that respect, notwithstanding influential work on sport in rural communities and surfing and sporting events. Despite such contributions, there is still considerable work to be done, particularly in the area of women's and girls' team sport. Sport is an arena where geographers can make broader and, importantly, bolder contributions, and a concern with spatiality gives geographers unique and critical insights into sport and its manifestation across scales from the global to the local.