The performativity of sports statistics: towards a research agenda

Abstract

Statistical analysis has become increasingly integral to contemporary sports. Most existing studies, regardless of whether they endorse or criticise the growing influence of statistical analysis in professional sports, attribute agential capacities exclusively to humans. In this conceptual article, we challenge both what we call ‘instrumentalist’ and ‘romantic’ approaches by applying insights from the expanding literature on the performative effects of statistical models in economic markets to the area of sports. Rather than understanding statistics as mirrors of an objective reality, we conceptualise them as interventions in the analysis and conduct of sports. The use of sophisticated techniques for data collection and analysis by scouts, managers, referees and athletes has profound feedback effects on how these sports professionals come to understand their sport and seek to improve their performance. An interdisciplinary performative understanding of statistics allows for an unpacking of the socio-material mechanisms through which data-heavy analytical technologies shape processes of valuation, commercialisation and regulation in professional sports.