Social Network Analysis of Sport: Emphasizing Social Structure in Sport Sociology

The purpose of this paper is to focus more attention on the potential value of a structural social network approach for understanding social interaction, relationships, structures, and change in sport. Despite growing interest in this approach in sociology in general, little attention has been paid to it by sport sociologists. Examples of applications to sport are presented concerning the study of pain and injury, small groups and subcultures, organizational relations, coaching burnout and deviance, and managerial recruitment and stacking.