Research lines in Sport Management: trends for master's and doctoral theses

Sport Management has consolidated as a fertile field for graduate research, where economics, consumer behavior and the management of organizations converge. Choosing the right research line is the first step toward a relevant, viable and publishable thesis.

Why research sport management

Sport today moves figures comparable to traditional industries while also operating as public policy, cultural good and a driver of social development. For the student, this means a decisive methodological advantage: accessible data (attendance, audience, revenue, user satisfaction) and management problems with both theoretical and practical relevance. The knowledge-generation line “Sport Management & Economics” articulates that crossover between the administration of sport organizations and the economic analysis of the sport phenomenon.

The work of academics such as Dr. M. J. Pizaña G., General Secretary of the Latin American Sports Management Association (ALGEDE), around the football industry and satisfaction with physical-sports programs, illustrates how Latin American studies yield evidence useful to managers and regulators.

Main current research lines

Five major strands dominate recent indexed output and suit master’s and doctoral theses:

• Sport economics and finance. Club business models, financing, the economic impact of events and governance. Buck and Ifland (2022) propose business-model taxonomies for Europe’s professional clubs, replicable in Latin American contexts.
• Marketing and fan behavior. Team identification, fan participation, loyalty and consumption. Uhrich (2020) examines antecedents and consequences of perceived fan participation in European football clubs.
• Talent management and coach leadership. Athlete development, the coach’s organizational culture and human-resource management in sport organizations.
• User satisfaction and experience. Perceived service quality, value and loyalty. Nuviala Nuviala et al. (2021) analyze how gender and age affect perceived quality, satisfaction and value.
• Sustainability and sport’s social impact. Social responsibility, environmental sustainability and community development (Hautbois and Desbordes, 2023).

Common theoretical frameworks and methods

Predominant research is quantitative, with cross-sectional designs based on surveys and validated scales (service quality, satisfaction, behavioral intention). Notable is the growing use of partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test relationships between constructs.

Case studies and documentary analysis are used for club governance and economics problems, while the mixed-method approach gains ground by combining executive interviews with financial or attendance data.

Trends 2020-2026

Those defining a topic today should consider four axes shaping the field’s frontier:

• Digital sport and e-sports: digital transformation reshapes the management of federations and clubs (Merten, Schmidt and Winand, 2024).
• Gender and equity: pay gaps, female leadership and sport consumption.
• Post-pandemic: facility reopening, shifts in mediated sport consumption and financial resilience.
• Sustainability: ecological practices in sport organizations and the professionalization of social responsibility (Breitbarth et al., 2023).

Latin America adds its own agendas: the transnational consumption of football and fan identity (Rozo, 2024), and the management of public sport services under budget constraints.

How to delimit a thesis topic in this area

A researchable question emerges from the crossover of a real management problem, an available theoretical body and accessible data. It helps to: (1) start from a concrete organization or program —club, federation, municipal service, gym—; (2) review recent literature to identify gaps; (3) operationalize the central construct with validated scales; (4) verify sample-access feasibility; and (5) articulate the question with the Sport Management & Economics line. Precise delimitation is what distinguishes a publishable work from a generic diagnosis.

References

• Breitbarth, T., McCullough, B. P., Collins, A., Gerke, A., & Herold, D. M. (2023). Environmental matters in sport: sustainable research in the academy. European Sport Management Quarterly, 23(1), 5-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2022.2159482
• Buck, C., & Ifland, S. (2022). Toward an enduring football economy: a business model taxonomy for Europe’s professional football clubs. European Sport Management Quarterly, 23(5), 1409-1429. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2022.2026448
• Hautbois, C., & Desbordes, M. (2023). Sustainability in sport: sport, part of the problem … and of the solution. Sustainability, 15(15), 11820. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151511820
• Merten, S., Schmidt, S. L., & Winand, M. (2024). Unlocking value: exploring digital transformation’s influence on knowledge management of national football associations. European Sport Management Quarterly, 25(3), 493-513. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2024.2400142
• Nuviala Nuviala, R., Pérez Ordás, R., Morán Gámez, G., & Falcón Miguel, D. (2021). Incidencia del género y la edad sobre la calidad, satisfacción y valor percibido de los usuarios de actividades deportivas organizadas. Retos, 42, 37-46. https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v42i0.83480
• Rozo, K. D. (2024). Eurocentric globalization of football: coloniality, consumption, social distinction and identities of transnational fans in Latin America. Soccer & Society, 25(4-6), 618-630. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2024.2332087
• Uhrich, S. (2020). Antecedents and consequences of perceived fan participation in the decision making of professional European football clubs. European Sport Management Quarterly, 21(4), 504-523. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2020.1757734