title: Sport, how people choose it: A network analysis approach.
abstract: In order to investigate the behaviour of athletes in choosing sports, we analyse data from part of the We-Sport database, a vertical social network that links athletes through sports. In particular, we explore connections between people sharing common sports and the role of age and gender by applying "network science" approaches and methods. The results show a disassortative tendency of athletes in choosing sports, a negative correlation between age and number of chosen sports and a positive correlation between age of connected athletes. Some interesting patterns of connection between age classes are depicted. In addition, we propose a method to classify sports, based on the analyses of the behaviour of people practising them. Thanks to this brand new classifications, we highlight the links of class of sports and their unexpected features. We emphasise some gender dependency affinity in choosing sport classes.
authors.affiliation: a GECO - Computational Epidemiology Group, Department of Veterinary Sciences , University of Torino , Torino , Italy.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ferreri
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ivaldi
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Daolio
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Giacobini
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rainoldi
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomassini
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D056352:Athletes; D002755:Choice Behavior; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D060756:Social Networking; D013177:Sports; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Sport classification; network analysis; social network; sport aggregation; sport practising