Drawing a scientific map of sponsorship in sports using co-citation analysis

One of the important applications of scientometrics is the drawing scientific maps, which is done using various techniques, including co-citation. The aim of this study was to draw a scientific map or the intellectual structure of the sponsorship in sports in the Web of Science (WoS).

This scientometric study was conducted using co-citation analysis. The statistical population of the current study was all research articles in the field of sponsorship in sports during 2002-2022, indexed in the WoS and used the keyword "Sponsorship in sports". After the data were extracted from the database, they were analyzed using the VOSviewer software and the co-citation method.

The scientific map of sponsorship in sports consists of 5 thematic clusters (sports sponsorship, financial sponsorship, sports, impact and performance) related to financial sponsorship in sports. The number of words studied showed that the topics published in the journal had a diverse thematic distribution. The distribution graph of vocabulary degree was of power type, indicating that a large number of words co-occur in different articles and a smaller number of words located at the end of the degree distribution graph or at the beginning of it had few co-occurrences of words. In addition, based on the number of societies formed, it was found that the authors of the articles tended to form small scientific groups in the form of universities or research institutes of their respective organizations.

Foreign research considers the existence of a competitive structure in the economy of countries as a driving factor for the development of financial support for sports, but domestic research has examined the factors that prevent the attraction of financial support.