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Coaches from both the professional and college ranks are often put forth as archetypal examples of effective leaders – individuals’ whose behaviors, styles, and wisdom provide the ever elusive playbook for how to successfully lead others. While numerous books and articles in the popular press put forth advice from leaders in the sports world, numerous empirical studies of the drivers of successful sports leadership and the factors that contribute to leader success in the context of sports have also been conducted. In this chapter, we first provide a broad review of empirical leadership research conducted within the sports world and examine how research within the sports context provides a suitable and advantageous setting for leadership research in general. Second, we offer a road map of opportunities for future leadership studies within the context of sports. The goal of this chapter is to stimulate and rally more thought-provoking research related to leadership in sports that generates insights for organizational leadership across contexts.

The chapter explores the developments in work on the history of quantification and sport, explaining how quantification in sport is generally understood, and then establishing what a sociological approach offers to scholars interested in exploring new expressions of these developments in biometrics and Big Data. It then outlines some potential directions scholars might pursue to further develop knowledge of these developments in the context of sport.

The chapter synthesizes existing literature from the sociology of quantification, sport sociology and quantification, and Big Data to provide historical, contemporary, and future oriented assessments of sport and datafication.

By situating a discussion of Big Data and biometrics in the context of sport, this chapter argues for the value of a sociological approach to these areas. The chapter engages prior work as a way to move scholars to challenge the assumed epistemological and political power of numbers for the way we engage sport.

The chapter argues for a number of future areas of study that may push the boundaries of existing research in the area.

The chapter provides a survey of the literature on sport, analytics, and Big Data as an impetus for future research into the importance of a sociological approach to these areas in the context of sport.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the presence of abuse enacted through virtual mediums with a specific focus on how athletes can become the targets of online hate. The chapter introduces social media and explores the role it has played in the increasing reliance on virtual worlds. The impact of digital technology on sport in particular is framed in order to demonstrate how digital technologies are now a vital component in our consumption of sport. The primary focus of the chapter is on how virtual spaces can pose significant risk(s). Freedom of speech, shifting power and the lack of safety and regulation in virtual spaces are all presented. Finally, recommendations are made for future research in the area in order to develop understanding of abuse augmented by virtual environments and to develop the focus on virtual safeguarding in sport and beyond.

This chapter synthesises and discusses existing literature from the disciplines of sport, social media and abuse, with a view to understand and address prominent issues encountered by athletes in the virtual world.

By examining abuse through a sociological lens, this chapter focusses on the factors that promote or enable abuse to occur online (often without regulation). The types of abuse experienced in virtual spaces are legion and this adds to the complexity of policing and/or safeguarding online environments.

The chapter makes recommendations for a number of future areas of study that will extend the current understanding of abuse in virtual environments.

The chapter provides a synthesis of the emerging area of virtual abuse and its links to sociology as a discipline. It offers insight into power in virtual spaces as a critical frame of reference for understanding virtual interactions and parasocial relationships.

Purpose: Due to COVID-19, tourism to Tokyo Olympic is totally banned and sports enthusiasts are not allowed to view any sport event.

Need of the study: The need of this chapter is to explore Twitter content and analyse its sentiments towards the mega sporting event #Tokyo2020 Olympic.

Methodology: This research has adopted the behaviour of players and sport fans to analyse their Twitter messages using netnographic approach. Sample of 7,475 tweets of #Tokyo2020 an official Twitter online Olympic campaign was collected, and these tweets were categorised with frequency analysis, sentiment analysis, and context analysis using NVivo.

Findings: Results highlighted that majority of tweets are positive towards Tokyo Olympic even in COVID-19 scenario. Findings of the study showed that Tokyo Olympic had favourable emotions, sporting sprit, positive state of energy, and players’ lifestyles.

Practical implications: This research explored the dynamics of engagement practices and can be extended to other fields of study and is useful to sports authorities to strategize their forthcoming sporting events.

This chapter examines trans and gender non-conforming persons' experiences of recreational sport and physical activity (PA). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with trans and gender non-conforming people, which were then analyzed using critical discourse analysis (CDA). Participants highlighted that while they did derive enjoyment from sport and physical activity, most mainstream spaces they had experienced, such as organized sport and gyms, were still unsafe and unwelcoming. These experiences were largely due to the continued influence of binary notions of gender on the organization of sport and physical activity as well as assumptions about bodily performance and presentation. Participants discussed how gendered bodily norms influenced the way they experienced their own bodies, both a result of others' perceptions and through self-surveillance. They also reflected on creating their own physical activity communities as a way to derive the benefits of physical activity while avoiding discriminatory experiences in mainstream spaces.