PhD L.K. Tropina¹
PhD A.M. Burkova¹
M.A. Kuzmin^1
1Ural Federal University (UrFU), Yekaterinburg

Keywords: sport discipline, Federal statistical report, sporting population index, ranking, rating, top-thirty.

Background. The national government gives a top priority to the initiatives to encourage inflow of human resource in habitual mass physical culture and sports in the country [3], with the indices of sporting population always ranked among the most important sport development criteria in the reporting, regulatory and programmatic documents of the national and regional sport federations [1, p.75]. Growing/ falling trends in the sporting population in the leading mass sport disciplines are always considered versus the relevant socio-economic contexts and duly monitored and analysed. Subject to our study were the most popular disciplines in the Russian Federations with the relevant sporting population groups.

Objective of the study was to rank the top-thirty Russian sport disciplines by their sporting populations based on the relevant Federal statistical reports of 2016; and to analyse variations in the rankings for the period of 2010-2016.

Methods and structure of the study. The study rates and ranks the sport disciplines by the relevant quantitative popularity criteria [5]. Subject to our study were the most popular disciplines in the Russian Federations with the relevant sporting population groups ranked and analysed in the descending order.

The study data were mined in the relevant statistical reports subject to the following regulation [2]: “Yearly Federal statistical reports in Form #1-FC “Physical culture and sports progress data” shall be formally performed and submitted by the relevant corporate entities (including civil organizations of different legal statuses and ownerships) responsible for the physical education and sports… with every violation of the reporting procedure and/or non-authentic data being subject to administrative responsibility”. The reporting data are consolidated in the annual report published on the website of the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation in its Statistical Data section as soon as the reporting year is over [4]. Therefore, the latest reporting data applied in the study were mined from the consolidated Federal Annual Statistics Report of 2016.

Study results and discussion. We used the consolidated statistical data of 2016 to rank the top sports by the total sporting population broken down by gender. Given in Table 1 hereunder are the top-thirty sport disciplines with the relevant breakdowns.

Table 1. Top-thirty sport disciplines in Russia ranked by their sporting populations, as of 2016

As demonstrated by Table 1, most of the sporting population prefer football including its sub-disciplines (classical football, futsal and beach football), with the total football sport population estimated at 11.3% of the total sporting population in Russia as of 2016.

The total national female sporting population of all age groups is reported at 8,637,653 as of 2016, with volleyball (including classical and beach volleyball) ranked number one by popularity; and fitness aerobics ranked number two, with its rapidly growing sub-disciplines of classical aerobics, step aerobics and hip-hop aerobics.

The sporting male populations were computed by deduction of the female populations from the relevant reported total numbers. The total national male sporting population of all age groups is reported at 16,691,607 as of 2016. Dance sport, sport aerobics and badminton are not in the male sporting population’s top-thirty. Taekwondo, applied sports and kickboxing are added to the rating.

We profiled variations in the sporting populations of the top-thirty sport disciplines for the period of 2010-2016 by the reported numbers of 2010, 2012 and 2014 being analysed versus the relevant data of 2016: see Table 2.

Table 2. Variations in sporting populations in the top-thirty sport disciplines for the period of 2010-2016

* Wrestling sports have been covered by the statistical reports since 2014; they include freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling sports that were reported separately prior to 2014.

The following sports have made progress in the rankings for the period of 2010-2016: badminton (+9 points), bodybuilding (+6 points), fitness aerobics (+5 points), darts, arm-wrestling and fishing sport (+4 points each); and the following sports showed regress in the rankings for the period of 2010-2016: sport aerobics (-8 points) and shooting (-7 points).

Conclusion. The study data and analyses may be helpful for the following sport entities in the following aspects:

• Sport federations in the Russian sport system may apply the data for their competitive position analyses and for the human resource and asset management efficiency studies;
• Relevant executive government offices may use the data to detect early negative trends in the local sports development processes with a special emphasis on the most sensitive disciplines to make the relevant adjustments in the government support policies and practices;
• Potential investors may use the data for the sport-specific market situation and/or development trends rating studies with the investment potential ratings;
• Educational institutions may use the data to consider their curricula and infrastructural/ technical provisions being revised to advance the sport disciplines most popular in the underage/ junior communities;
• Management of the relevant physical training/ sport service institutions and facilities may use the data to revise their services in favour of the most popular sports;
• National and foreign sport researchers and analysts may apply the data on the popular sports development trends in the Russian Federation as reported by the national statistics.

References

1. Mylnikova L.S., Bratkov K.I., Gurin Y.V. Aktualnye voprosy razrabotki obscherossiyskimi sportivnymi federatsiyami programm razvitiya vidov sporta s uchetom ikh osobennostey i klyuchevykh pokazateley [Topical issues of development of sports development programs by Russian sports federations in view of their features and key indicators]. Sb. st. po materialam LV Mezhdunar. nauch.-prakt. konf. «Nauchnaya diskussiya: voprosy pedagogiki i psihologii» [Proc. LV Intern. res.-pract. conf. " Scientific discussion: issues of pedagogics and psychology"] no. 10(55). Moscow, Internauka publ., 2016, pp. 71-77.
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3. Svodnye otchety po forme federalnogo statisticheskogo nablyudeniya no.1-FK «Svedeniya o fizicheskoy kulture i sporte» za 2010-2016 gg. [Summary reports on the form of federal statistical observation no.1-PC "Information on physical culture and sports" for 2010-2016]. Available at: https://www.minsport.gov.ru/sport/physical-culture/statisticheskaya-inf/ (Date of access:20.09.2017).
4. Tatarova G.G. Metodologiya analiza dannykh v sotsiologii (vvedenie). Uchebnik dlya vuzov [Methodology of data analysis in sociology (introduction). Textbook for higher schools]. Moscow: NOTA BENE publ., 1999, 224 p.

Corresponding author: lktr@mail.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to rank the top-thirty Russian sport disciplines by their sporting populations based on the relevant Federal statistical reports of 2016; and to analyse variations in the rankings for the period of 2010-2016. The article gives a brief overview of the indices applied by the Federal statistical reports in the sports development domain. We used the consolidated statistical data of 2016 to rank the top-ranking sports by the total sporting populations broken down by gender. The study data give the means to rate the competitive positions of the subject sport disciplines by the total national sporting populations with breakdowns by the gender groups. The article analyses variations in the 2016 rankings of the top-thirty sport disciplines by the total sporting populations versus the rankings of 2010, 2012 and 2014.