The promises and limitations of big data for studying sports practices: the case of running apps

Promesses et limites des big data pour l’étude des pratiques sportives: le cas des applications de course à pied

Bastien Soulé (), Guillaume Routier () and Bénédicte Vignal ()
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Bastien Soulé: L-VIS - Laboratoire sur les Vulnérabilités et l'Innovation dans le Sport (EA 7428) - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon, UCBL UFR STAPS - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - UFR Sciences et techniques des activités physiques et sportives - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon
Guillaume Routier: L-VIS - Laboratoire sur les Vulnérabilités et l'Innovation dans le Sport (EA 7428) - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon, UCBL UFR STAPS - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - UFR Sciences et techniques des activités physiques et sportives - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon
Bénédicte Vignal: L-VIS - Laboratoire sur les Vulnérabilités et l'Innovation dans le Sport (EA 7428) - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon

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Abstract: For the past decade, editors of running apps have been exploiting the activity data generated by these digital devices, enriching it with questionnaires and publishing surveys on their users' practices. Based on enormous amounts of diverse data, the ambition is legitimate at first glance. However, several questions arise regarding the authority that tends to emanate from massive amounts of information, the volume of which does not guarantee its relevance. Combining documentary analysis and interviews, we examined the methodological validity of these studies, as well as the subsidiary contribution of this big data in relation to socio-demographic surveys on sports practices. This empirical work highlights significant weaknesses in terms of rigor and representativeness, as well as limited revelatory effects in relation to pre-existing knowledge. This does little to alter the belief in the informative potential of big data, which is considered meaningful by virtue of its massive scale. They allow for an overinterpretation marked by performativity, revealing the informational and communicational facet of data, which becomes a medium for narrative processes emphasizing rupture and novelty. Positioning oneself as a resource, or even a reference in terms of studies, statistics, and market data on running and its (r)evolutions takes precedence over the reliability of analyses and interpretive caution. Therefore, having access to large amounts of data, emphasizing its robustness, and then backing it up with descriptions that amplify real developments leads to taking on the elegant role of a pioneering descriptor of major trends of change.

Date: 2026-01-13
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Published in Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique / Bulletin of Sociological Methodology, 2026, ⟨10.1177/07591063251400750⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05460004

DOI: 10.1177/07591063251400750

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