Movers and shakers: A bibliometric analysis of sports science literature and the context-dependent impact of novelty

This study synthesises the sports science literature from the Web of Science Core Collection to discern central research themes, influential academics, and institutions that have shaped the discipline. We applied quantitative metrics to systematically map 205,738 articles published from 1948 to 2023, revealing an 8.9% annual growth in publications, with the United States as the predominant publisher in the field by volume. Notably, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Portugal demonstrated high collaboration ratios. The analysis revealed the expanding scope of sports science, reflecting the field's evolution from reactive treatment paradigms to proactive enhancement methodologies. Utilising a semantic novelty metric on a focused subset of 6470 articles from 2010, this study examined the relationship between semantic novelty and citation impact, while investigating the moderating influence of research scope and team size. A strong positive relationship was found between novelty and the likelihood of a paper being highly cited (Odds Ratio [OR] = 4.08 CI [2.65, 6.28], p < 0.001). However, this effect was moderated by research context. The effect was significant only in ‘Focused’ papers (those with fewer references) and was greater in ‘Small Teams’ (≤4 authors). This analysis highlights the utility of bibliometric approaches not only for mapping a discipline's evolution, but also for uncovering the nuanced, context-dependent ways in which scientific novelty achieves impact. These findings carry practical implications for sports science and coaching researchers when considering team composition, research scope, and strategies to maximise the impact of innovative work.