Application of statistics in sport related research: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Sport analytics has been attracting the attention of experts in the field of sport science, medicine, as well as statistics, data analytics, and engineering. As sport statistics is a prominent field of research, especially nowadays when the implementation of technologies in sport and the data can be collected more easily, it would be valuable to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the articles published related to sport analytics and injury prevention. To do so, in this paper, a bibliometric analysis has been performed based on the data available in the SCOPUS database. Articles published in journals on English between 2013-2023 were observed. The analysis encompassed 17309 articles. The results show steady increase in the number of articles published yearly, from 1040 articles in 2013 to 2346 articles published in 2022. So far, in 2023, 619 articles have been published. Most papers are indexed in the subject area of medicine (53.9%) and health professions (21.2%). The third most common subject area is other (7.4%) which encompasses multidisciplinary, mathematics, physics and similar. Interestingly, 1% is classified in the subject area computer science and engineering. Detailed bibliometric analysis will be performed, encompassing analysis per affiliation, by country, as well as by authors. The analysis will be conducted in R statistical package, using the package “bibliometrix”. The added value of the paper is in the presentation of how the research and publication in the field of sport analytics is changing, and providing insights on who the leading authors and institutions in the field are.