This paper explores the articulations of sport and ‘Big Data’—an important though to date understudied topic. That we have arrived at an ‘Age of Big Data’ is an increasingly accepted premise: the proliferation of tracking technologies, combined with the desire to record/monitor human activity, has radically amplified the volume and variety of data in circulation, as well as the velocity at which data move. Herein, we take initial steps toward addressing the implications of Big Data for sport (and vice versa), first by historicizing the relationship between sport and quantification and second by charting its contemporary manifestations. We then present four overlapping postulates on sport in the Age of Big Data. These go toward both showing and questioning the logic of ‘progress’ said to lie at the core of sport’s nascent statistical turn. We conclude with reflections on how a robust sociology of sport and Big Data might be achieved.

This article investigates the intersection of three interrelated trends: first, the positioning of sport as a contributor to sustainable development, particularly in regard to the increasing corporatization of sport for development (SFD); second, the trend toward sustainable development in the extractives industry, as taken up within a corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach; and intersection of SFD and CSR when mobilized in pursuit of sustainable development in Indigenous communities in Canada. To do so, we examined the sustainability documents of Rio Tinto, the largest mining and metals company in Canada, with a focus on its operations in the Canadian North that are near Indigenous communities. Based on our results, we argue that SFD programming and the CSR approaches of Rio Tinto promote forms of sustainable development that capitalize on broadened (and emptied) definitions of sustainability, that may ultimately contribute to greater forms of unsustainability.

Ecological modernization refers to the idea that capitalist-driven scientific and technological advancements can not only attend to the world’s pending environmental crises, but even lead to ecological improvement, thus allowing sustainability and consumption to continue in concert. In this paper, we examine ecological modernization at the confluence of environmentalism, international development and global sport. Through an analysis of golf and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, we argue that golf’s return to the Olympic program is illustrative of a post-political approach to environmentalism, whereby ecological modernization is posited as a common-sense response to addressing matters of global climate change.

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