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Athletes often use muscle rub to heat up the muscles during warm-up as they believe this will improve their sports performance. However, there is no clear evidence on whether muscle rub application to the upper legs can improve physical performance in athletes. Twenty college athletes were randomized to either receiving 3g of muscle rub or a placebo. Static flexibility, dynamic balance, and explosive leg power were measured before and after the application of the muscle rub/placebo. Percentage changes in the performance scores (post–pre) were calculated and compared between the muscle rub and placebo groups using the Mann–Whitney U test and the smallest worthwhile change was calculated to offer further insights for individual participants. Results showed that jump distance significantly increased by 1.7% ($p=0.028$, large effect size) with muscle rub application compared to placebo. There was no significant difference in the percentage change between muscle rub and placebo groups in flexibility ($p=0.520$) and dynamic balance ($p=0.529$) performances. In conclusion, application of muscle rub on the upper legs positively enhanced explosive leg power but did not affect flexibility or dynamic balance performances.

The aim of this research is to examine sport sponsorship’s effectiveness over the internet. A conceptual framework for sponsorship evaluation over the internet was proposed, incorporating crucial factors such as supporters’ beliefs about sponsorship, their satisfaction form the sport event as well as their degree of sport involvement, the usage of website and social media, awareness of and attitude toward real sponsoring firms and their actual and future purchase intentions concerning sponsors’ goods and services. A quantitative method was used for the purpose of the current research and a total of 3434 questionnaires were successfully completed and analyzed. The empirical results indicated that sponsorship awareness impacts positively and significantly in both actual and intended purchase behavior of the respondents, suggesting that sponsorship awareness is the initial stage of a continuum of fans’ responses that can lead to their purchase intentions and actual purchase. Evidence on this study contributes to the ongoing debate about sponsorship effectiveness and its implication on customer behavior and provides significant implications for managers wishing to improve their future revenues by investing in sponsorship deals, since sponsorship awareness is an important feature that managers must control in order to affect their customers purchasing decisions.

Social media has revolutionized the sports industry by changing the way athletes, coaches, clubs, federations, sport companies and other industry actors interact. Although academic interest in the emergence of social media in the context of sports has increased in recent years, these platforms have not been studied from a bibliometric viewpoint. Therefore, this study examined the scientific production of social media in sports using descriptive bibliometric software. The most prolific authors, journals, institutions, number of citations and networks of authorship are identified. From the bibliometric analysis, implications for sport managers and future research directions for social media in sports are stated.

The rapid increase in sport sponsorship expenditure has been accompanied by a significant growth of research studies evaluating sponsorship efficiency in various sport contexts. Nevertheless, the majority of research studies have concentrated on the comprehension of the variables driving to behaviors. A more precise evaluation of sport sponsorship efficiency is of necessity, taking into attitudinal as well as behavioral constructs. This study focused on the exploration of the attitudinal and behavioral constructs in the context of sport sponsorship. More precisely, the aim of this research is to offer some elucidations of the effect of fans’ involvement with sport, the degree of their attachment with their favorite team, their beliefs about sponsorship and the anticipated sincerity of the sponsors on the awareness of and attitude toward real sponsoring firms, as well as its subsequent influence on future purchase intentions concerning sponsoring firms’ merchandise. Data from 2,752 fans were successfully gathered and analyzed utilizing structural equation modeling analysis. The results of a structural equation model provide an exceptional conceptual framework that underlines the significance of comprehending the role of important factors in sponsorship efficiency. The findings highlight the influential role of the examined factors in guiding sport clubs’ supporters to form favorable attitudes and purchase sponsors’ goods and services — an outcome of considerable significance for both the practitioners and academics in the field. Various implications for future research studies as well as strategies to boost the advantages for both the sport clubs and sponsoring firms can be drawn from the suggested model.

With the amazing increasing in number of participants, rock climbing has become a popular sport in the last decade. A growing number of participants, with different skill level, inevitably leads to an increased number of injuries related to this practice. The kind of lesions that can be observed in rock-climbers is very specific and often involves the hand. For this reason is very important for any hand surgeon that is exposed to sport injuries to know which and the most common injuries related to this sport and which are the basic principles for the treatment of those. The aim of this article is to review the literature that has been published in the last ten year in this topic. On the NCBI database 22 articles where found that where related to rock climbing lesion affecting the hand or the whole body. Differences where found according to kind of rock climbing activity that was analyzed, alpine climb leads to more serious injuries, often affecting the lower limb, while in sport and recreational rock climbing the upper limb and the hand are definitely the most affected parts. Flexor pulley lesions, followed by fractures and strains are the most common lesions affecting the hand that are related to this practice.

Background: The increasingly fashionable sport of motocross is practiced worldwide by millions of people, but there is very little in the literature regarding its associated injuries and their prevention. We therefore present the first comprehensive, prospective study looking at hand and wrist injuries resulting from motocross injuries in the UK.

Methods: Data was prospectively collected over a 5-year period (from 2010 to 2015) at our regional trauma unit. We exclusively looked at motocross riders. Injuries sustained via motorcycle were excluded from our study.

Results: During the period studied (five years), 615 injuries were collected, including 240 patients with 265 hand and wrist injuries. Most of injuries were sustained in male patients. The patient’s age range was from 4–78 years with most injuries occurring during the spring and summer months. A total of 96 (40%) patients required operative treatment. The most common injury pattern was distal radius fractures (n = 53, 20%), followed by metacarpal fractures (n = 38, 14%) and phalangeal fractures (n = 36, 13.5%).

Conclusions: This study shows the impact and incidence of related hand and wrist injuries. Motocross is a globally fashionable sport. This study shows that the number of annual tournaments and racers have doubled in last 5 years. The number of hand and wrist related injuries and operative requirements have quadruples over the last five years. It is recognized as a high-risk sport despite the use of protective equipment and course adaptions. These injuries can have implications for nearby treating hospitals.

Sports can help to increase foreign trade and promote global economic integration. Engaging in sports can provide visibility opportunities for countries and may spur the interest of firms as well as consumers in the respective foreign market. Sport could also help to infuse trust into cross-country business relationships. While previous studies have investigated the role of sport events on trade, this study analyzes whether countries can increase trade between them by engaging in sporting activities with each other. We use soccer, being the world’s most popular sport, as an example when investigating this potential bilateral sport-trade link. Our empirical strategy builds on the fact that many soccer matches between countries’ national teams are the result of a random drawing procedure. Thus, they are a possible source of exogenous variation. Using a gravity model framework, we test the proposed link for approximately 4,800 soccer matches that were played between 209 countries during the period 1995 through 2001. We also analyze the hypothesized underlying impact channel by estimating the impact on trade for goods that are likely to have different elasticity with respect to information and trust friction. The results are indicative of the hypothesis that countries that engage in sporting activities with each other enhance their bilateral trade. These results could have potentially interesting policy implications. Governments may want to consider actively promoting sporting activities together with countries with which they want to enhance their trade.