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In 2008, Paul De Knop (Vrije Universiteit Brussels) stated that “in spite of the social value of sport and its role as a policy tool, human sport sciences still lack a fulfilling position in the academic world.” In Belgium and in Flanders (the northern and Dutch-speaking part of the country), the sociology of sport is still a small field of research among the sport sciences. The discipline is institutionalized within the institutes of physical education of the three universities (University of Ghent; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Vrije Universiteit Brussels). The scarcity of academic funding streams resulted in a focus on more applied, policy-based research in Flanders. Additionally, all institutes emphasize increasingly an interdisciplinary cooperation to connect with stronger research fields (e.g., health sciences, social studies, or international studies on sport participation). Even though each university has its own research tradition, the universities and the government cooperate in a longitudinal study on sport participation in Flanders. De Knop, who became rector of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) in 2008, was the first lecturer of the course sociology of sport at his university. He graduated in 1975 as licentiate in physical education and his career at the university converged with the development of the discipline. Together with Roland Renson and Bart Vanreusel (KU Leuven), he was one of the academic pioneers for the sociology of sport in Flanders.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether the fitness industry in Belgium is financially viable in its position as a growing commercial player within the framework of the European sport model where non-profit and public sport providers still have a strong impact.

The authors evaluate the financial performance of the Belgian fitness industry using a time-trend analysis applying a cross-sectional research design for the years 2002 through 2007.

The analysis shows that the Belgian fitness industry is not able to generate positive income figures despite large increases in sales revenues. In particular fitness chains generally accumulate losses. However, the Belgian fitness industry pursues an active investment policy resulting in high noncash expenses in depreciations negatively influencing accounting profit numbers. The operating cash flow generated by the Belgian fitness industry is, nevertheless, largely positive. Although no immediate liquidity problem exists, the fitness industry needs to improve its profitability in the long run in order to stay in business.

This study can be a starting point for further and more in depth financial performance evaluations of commercial actors in the field of sport. Differences and similarities between European countries should be investigated in order to generalize the findings.

The conclusions could support regulators in policy decisions and business managers in strategic decisions relying on financial information in order to pilot their organization.

Analyzing the financial performance of a sport industry at a national scale is challenging. However, this kind of analysis is not frequently performed for commercial sport providers such as the fitness industry. This is precisely where this paper wants to contribute.

Social network sites are becoming more visual-centric. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of visual social network sites as a marketing platform.

This paper comprises two experiments. The first experiment sought to examine the effect of social influence; while the second experiment examined the effect of image quality on the perception of quality and purchase intention.

The first experiment showed that social influence did not affect perceived quality or purchase intention. In the second experiment, a one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) adjusting for sport involvement showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups. Respondents in the experimental group reported higher levels of perceived quality (adjusted M=3.68) and purchase intention (adjusted M=3.23) when compared to the control group’s perceived quality (adjusted M=3.12) and purchase intention (adjusted M=2.17).

One of the limitations of this study is that it only examined the effects through a single social network site, i.e. Instagram. As there are other visual-centric social network sites, such as Tumblr and Pinterest, which operate slightly different from Instagram, it remains to be established how such effects vary across these social network sites.

The results suggest that social influence on Instagram is limited and marketers should invest in images of high quality when marketing on visual social network sites.

While there are many studies examining the effectiveness of marketing on social network sites, these studies have primarily focussed on earlier social network sites, such as Facebook. Newer social network sites that are more visual-centric, such as Instagram, are different from earlier social network sites and studied to a lesser extent. This study adds insights on the marketing effectiveness of visual-centric social network sites and deepens the understanding on marketing in general on social media.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the attendance range of spectators at an English Football Association Premier League club. The numbers of spectators in both percentage and absolute terms were calculated and allocated to three segments (heavy, medium, light attendance). The findings were compared to an earlier reported study in the United States and marketing recommendations based on related studies and industry expertise were proposed for those involved in live spectator sports.

Since the 1970s there have been extraordinary changes and growth in Canadian sport in terms of access, opportunity and recognition. Yet, the gains and successes of girls and women’s sport are often written, told and retold as uncomplicated success stories, as progress, with the battles fought and the complex negotiations of the past eerily absent. In this chapter, we turn to the work of feminist poststructuralist Avery Gordon to consider gender, feminisms and sport in the Canadian context. We do this by putting various moments in time in conversation with one another and considering our current moment in light of what has come before but is often forgotten, overlooked or even suppressed. We argue that the need for feminist praxis remains significant in Canadian sport and it is imperative that we continue to shed light on ghostly (dis)appearances in narratives of sport in Canada.

Sports tourism was strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no consensus on what sports tourism should look like in the post-pandemic period. This study explores the future of sports tourism in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides an alternative paradigm model.

Data were collected by interviewing sports tourism experts. Data analysis was based on the continuous comparison method during three stages of open, axial and selective coding.

The findings point to the complexity of the future sports tourism industry. Post-COVID-19 sports tourism strongly depends on environmental forces and targeted support, with strategies focused on tourists’ safety and security, digitalization of the industry, and new employment opportunities.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge on sports tourism by providing answers to the current challenges, threats and opportunities associated with the pandemic. The proposed paradigm model could be a guideline for sports tourism practitioners and policymakers to accelerate recovery from COVID-19 in a sustainable and resilient manner.

In the presence of limited financial resources, developing countries such as Lebanon often allocate small budgets to the sports sector. Even more, the Lebanese Government lacks a strategic approach that is necessary for any nation to achieve elite sport success. This study aims to assess the motivations and barriers that impact Lebanese athletes’ achievements at the Olympics by addressing the factors that affect such participation. Two main aspects were put into the study: lack of governmental support and sponsorship.

This study examines the barriers that hinder achievement by Lebanese Olympians in their International participation with an emphasis on the factors that affect their performance whether positively or negatively. The methodology consisted of a set of survey questions filled by 50 Lebanese athletes and 4 interviews conducted with Lebanese Olympians to make use of their experience and insight regarding such barriers and how to best boost motivation among young and potential talent.

The findings shed light on the limited Lebanese Olympic participation; out of the 17 participation (226 Olympians in total), only 4 Olympians won medals for the country; the past victory was 38 years ago. The reasons as reached are mainly due to the lack of government support and the inability of athletes to secure-related sponsors. Specifically, a lack of governmental support has a negative correlation with athletes’ achievements in international contests. Moreover, the inability of athletes to secure the financial support, in the form of sponsorship, necessary for the training, preparation and all the way to participation.

The study revealed a lack of active participation from the government in nurturing skill and elevating talented athletes’ chance to achieve in the Olympics. The main factor that this study was able to identify is the lack of an official body to manage the nurturing, training, financial support up to participation of the athletes in the international events.

The study highlighted the importance of training camps and consistent improvement to performance. While these two require extensive investment and devotion, athletes on their own cannot afford to fulfill the requirements without the support of the government; the latter being almost absent.

The insights provided through this study address the importance of sponsorship and government support in athletes’ achievements. It shed light on areas that are nonexistent for the Lebanese case and provided practical recommendations that if applied, would increase the chances of Lebanon in competing effectively in the international arena.

The purpose of this paper is to extend brand identification theory to the sports team context by testing the direct and indirect effects of a sports team’s personality, sports fans’ identification with the team, and the effect of the length of fans’ relationship with a team on their loyalty to it.

The authors conducted a quantitative study among ice hockey fans of one Finnish hockey team before play-off games. Data came from an online questionnaire generating 1,166 responses.

The authors find that: first, identification with a team mediates the effects of brand personality on attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty; second, brand personality is a stronger driver of identification among newer fans; and third, brand personality has a stronger influence on both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty among newer fans. These findings stress the importance of sports brand’s personality in driving fans’ identification with the team and their loyalty to it.

The study develops and tests a new conceptual model on consumer loyalty in the sports team context. The authors shed light on how sports team personality affects its fans’ identification with the team and the formation of fan loyalty, from the perspective of fans’ relationship length.

This chapter explores the role of informal sport in the development of top-level Icelandic athletes. The approach is explorative and intended to develop an empirically grounded theory. We conducted semistructured interviews with 10 Icelandic elite athletes. Our analysis suggests that the development of free play may be of central importance to the development of elite athletes. Free play offers the opportunity to foster intrinsic motivation, mastery of skills, flow, craftsmanship, and aesthetic experience. We suggest that these qualities are important in the development of top athletes, especially in their early sport career. Our analysis also highlights the importance of unsupervised informal peer interaction. A pool of unsupervised peer networks can serve as a prerequisite for the development of informal sport that may promote qualities that are desirable for the development of top-level athletes. Our analysis further suggests that the contribution of informal sport depends on how it interacts with other elements in the social context and its relationship to formal sport.

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel retractable main landing gear for a light amphibious airplane, while the design, synthesis and analysis are given in details for constructing the main landing gear.

The constraint three-position synthesis has given the correct path of all linkages that suitably fit the landing gear into the compartment. The additional lock-link is introduced into the design to ensure the securement of the mechanism while landing. Having the telescopic gas-oil shock strut as a core element to absorb the impact load, it enhances the ability and efficiency to withstand higher impact than others type of light amphibious airplane.

By kinematics bifurcation analysis, the optimized value of the unlock spring stiffness at 90 N/m can be found to tremendously reduce the extended-retracted linear actuator force from 500 N to 150 N at the beginning of the retraction sequence. This could limit the size and weight of the landing gear actuator of the light amphibious airplane.

The drop test of the landing gear to comply with the ASTM f-2245 (Standard Specification for Design and Performance of a Light Sport Airplane) reveals that the novel landing gear can withstand the impact load at the drop height determined by the standard. The maximum impact loading 4.8 G occurs at the drop height of 300 mm, and there is no sign of any detrimental or failure of the landing gear or the structure of the light amphibious airplane. The impact settling time response reaches the 2% of steady-state value in approximately 1.2 s that ensure the safety and stability of the amphibious airplane if it subjects to an accidentally hard landing.

This paper presents unique applications of a retractable main landing gear of a light amphibious airplane. The proposed landing gear functions properly and complies with the drop test standard, ensuring the safety and reliability of the airplane and exploiting the airworthiness certification process.