A Content Analysis of Interscholastic Sport Management Research

Despite nearly 8 million participants, and millions more stakeholders in the form of parents, administrators, and coaches, interscholastic sport research is scarce. To determine the scope of existing interscholastic sport research the current study investigated all sport management journals listed on the NSSM list of Journals Serving the Community of Sport Management Scholarship. results indicated that of the 37,107 journal articles on the NASSM list 931 focused on some aspect of interscholastic sport. When removing 505 medical studies and 78 law studies, the number of sport-specific studies totaled 348, which is less than 1% of all sport management publications. Although results demonstrate research growth from the 1970s to 2024, particularly in the amount of qualitative research, the scale of research is strikingly small. Fortunately, most existing research focuses on the participants at a developmentally impactful time of their lives, and newer journals appear to welcome interscholastic inquiry.