Worldwide trends in the scientific production on soccer players market value, a bibliometric analysis using bibliometrix R-tool

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to identify the current state, the emergent research clusters, the key research topics and the configuration of collaboration in scientific production related to the market value of soccer players. Design/methodology/approach This article analyzes 52 articles published between 1985 and 2021 and from the Scopus and WoS databases. Findings The subject is of growing interest both in academic and practical areas. A variable that frequently appears as a determinant of market value is crowd wisdom. The largest cluster related to the co-citation level shows that the main issues about soccer player market value are player performance, team performance, and the determinants of the superstar formation. Spain and Germany stand out as essential countries both in literary production and citation rate. The network of collaborations is still low. Research limitations/implications This study is supported by databases being constantly updated, resulting in continuous variation in the number of indexed journals. Consequently, a bibliometric analysis regarding an emergent topic can, in fewer years, be subject to essential variations. Another limitation is that it has analyzed a particular topic using the most influential databases, and the global perspective could be improved with the incorporation of other different databases. Data regarding collaborations could be helpful for investigations or policies that propose to approach the topic supported by specialized groups. This study offers the possibility for future researchers to extend the databases used, the level of analysis, or focus on specific topics or variables affecting the soccer player market value. Originality/value This study contributes to knowing the current state of the soccer player market value research. Studies on such topics are relatively limited concerning the literature review.

Football players in light of economic value theory: Critical review and conceptualisation

“…In view of the increasing number of empirical articles using Transfermarkt values as proxies for transfer fees, and in line with Peeters (2018), we consider it necessary to study the relationships between the two indicators in order to assess potential biases, but we also encourage researchers to focus on the validity of the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ hypothesis, since Transfermarkt provides, all subjects combined, one of the largest examples to hand. Moreover, in line with Serna Rodríguez et al (2022), we observe that the wider data availability made possible by Transfermarkt, amongst others, has led to a huge increase in the number of articles focusing on player value. We believe that measures to make data more readily available to all researchers would increase the quantity and improve the quality of articles published.…”

“…Whilst subjective value theory suggests the use of the terms 'price' and 'value', it seems that the term 'soccer player market value' is becoming increasingly common in the academic literature (Serna Rodríguez et al, 2022). In this section, we examine how the existing literature defines the market value of football players, i.e., the price in subjective value theory.…”

“…The determination of transfer fees has been discussed in the literature for 30 years (Carmichael & Thomas, 1993), but the availability of a crowdsourced valuation, Transfermarkt ‘market values’, has given a second wind to the empirical determination of players' valuations (Franceschi et al, 2023; Serna Rodríguez et al, 2022). Many studies on the drivers of the value of football players deem these values as proxies for transfer fees in their empirical settings (see subsequent Section 3.2).…”

“…On further investigation of this football‐related literature, we can pinpoint two indications of increased interest from academics. First is that football player valuation seems to be structuring itself as a research strand per se, as highlighted by the recent publication of two systematic literature reviews (Franceschi et al, 2023; Serna Rodríguez et al, 2022). These works shed light on the increasing number of papers published on the topic in recent years, especially since 2016.…”

Cyclic fatigue in endodontics: A bibliometric analysis

“…14 It is a program written in Java with a user interface that uses the R-based bibliometric library. 15 Owing to its user interface, it allows analysis and visualization without the need for coding. 16,17 In addition to the visualization with the Biblioshiny program, the Tableau program was also made in the visualization by using the data obtained as a result of the analysis.…”