“This text provides a rich source of knowledge and understanding about talent
development and blends academic theory with the real world of sport effectively”.
Dr Andrew Balsdon, PD for Sport Coaching Science, Canterbury Christ Church University
Talent Identification and Development
in Sport
Identifying and developing talented athletes to their fullest potential is a central
concern of sport scientists, sports coaches, and sports policy makers. The second
edition of this popular text offers a state of the science synthesis of current
knowledge in talent identification and development in sport, from the biological
basis of talent to the systems and processes within sport through which that talent
is nurtured.
Written by a team of leading international experts, the book explores key fac­
tors and issues in contemporary sport, including:
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nature and nurture in the development of sporting talent
designing optimal developmental environments
long-term modelling of athlete development
understanding the complexity of talent selection
in-depth case studies of successful talent development systems.
With an emphasis on practical implications for all those working in sport, the
book offers an authoritative evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of con­
temporary systems for identifying and developing talent in sport. This is impor­
tant reading for any student, researcher, or practitioner with an interest in skill
acquisition, youth sport, elite sport, sports coaching, or sports development.
Joseph Baker is with the Lifespan Performance Laboratory in the School of
Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Canada. His research focuses
on talent identification, skill acquisition, and understanding the perceptual-cogni­
tive factors underpinning sport expertise. He works with elite teams and organi­
sations around the world to optimise athlete performance and development.
Stephen Cobley (Ph.D., C.Psychol.) is an Associate Professor within the Faculty
of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney, Australia. His research
interests examine the developmental factors that facilitate or inhibit health and
performance from a multi-disciplinary perspective. His research and applied work
have led to the evaluation, modification, and writing of athlete development
programs and policy for numerous sport organisations.
Jörg Schorer is a Professor of Sport and Movement Science at the Institute of
Sport Science at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany. His
research interests are not only within the field of talent identification and devel­
opment, but also in expertise in sport, perceptual-motor skills, and sport
psychology.
Talent Identification and
Development in Sport
International Perspectives
Second edition
Edited by
Joseph Baker, Stephen Cobley, and
Jörg Schorer
Second edition published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Joseph Baker, Stephen Cobley and Jörg
Schorer; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Joseph Baker, Stephen Cobley and Jörg Schorer to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-46929-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-50198-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-04911-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
by Taylor & Francis Books
For Wyatt and Lane – Sport is the key to adventures that
can change your life. Go get them!
JB
For coaches who make youth sport places of fun, enjoy­
ment, skill development, health promotion, belonging and
community as well as a vehicle to see the world. You
mean so much in so many lives.
SC
Für Aga, Harald und Uwe.
JS
Contents
List of illustrations
List of contributors
1 Talent Identification and Development in Sport: An Introduction to
a Field of Expanding Research and Practice
xi
xiv
1
STEPHEN COBLEY, JOSEPH BAKER AND JÖRG SCHORER
PART 1
Theoretical and Conceptual Models for Understanding
Talent Identification and Development
2 Talent Development in Sport: Moving beyond Nature and Nurture
17
19
JOSEPH BAKER AND BRADLEY W. YOUNG
3 The Talent Development Process as Enhancing Athlete
Functionality: Creating Forms of Life in an Ecological Niche
34
MARTYN ROTHWELL, KEITH DAVIDS, JOSEPH STONE, DUARTE ARAÚJO AND
RICHARD SHUTTLEWORTH
4 Talent Selection: Making Decisions and Prognoses about Athletes
50
FRANZISKA LATH, RUUD DEN HARTIGH, NICK WATTIE AND JÖRG SCHORER
5 One Day at a Time: Steps to Optimising the Daily Training
Environment for Talent Development
66
TIM BUSZARD, MICHAEL MALONEY, LYNDON KRAUSE AND LUCA OPPICI
6 The Shifting Sands of Time: Maturation and Athlete Development
STEPHEN COBLEY, MICHAEL ROMANN, MARIE JAVET, SHAUN ABBOTT AND
RIC LOVELL
81
x
Contents
PART 2
International Case Studies of Talent Identification and
Development
7 Athlete Development in Norwegian Handball
99
101
CHRISTIAN THUE BJØRNDAL AND LARS TORE RONGLAN
8 Finding Talent and Establishing the Road to Excellence in Table
Tennis: The Dutch Case
115
IRENE FABER, TITUS DAMSMA AND JOHAN PION
9 The Role of Skill Acquisition Specialists in Talent Development
130
ROSS A. PINDER, MICHAEL MALONEY, IAN RENSHAW AND SIAN BARRIS
10 Rough Draft: The Accuracy of Athlete Selection in North American
Professional Sports
145
LOU FARAH AND JOSEPH BAKER
11 High Speed on the Ice: Talent Development in Dutch Long Track
Speed Skating
158
INGE STOTER AND MARIJE T. ELFERINK-GEMSER
12 ‘Wide and Emergent – Narrow and Focussed’: A Dual-Pathway
Approach to Talent Identification and Development in England
Rugby Union
170
KEVIN TILL, DON BARRELL, JOHN LAWN, BEN LAZENBY, ANDY ROCK AND
STEPHEN COBLEY
13 How Similarities and Differences between Sports Lead to Talent
Transfer: A Process Approach
184
JOHAN PION, JAN WILLEM TEUNISSEN, STIJN TER, WELLE,
GWENNYTH SPRUIJTENBURG, IRENE FABER AND MATTHIEU LENOIR
14 More Lessons Learned: Future Research in Talent Identification and
Development
197
JOSEPH BAKER, STEPHEN COBLEY AND JÖRG SCHORER
Index
203
Illustrations
Figures
1.1
1.2
2.1
3.1
3.2
4.1
4.2
5.1
5.2
Cobley’s (2019) jigsaw analogy of athlete development with
reference to swimming, specifically a 100m freestyle swimmer
Cobley and Cooke’s (2009) conceptual diagram of common stages
in talent identification and development, from normative to elite
populations, with particular relevance to team sports
An integrated model of influences on sporting success
A continuum of practice designs with different affordances on offer
for learners. At one end, learners are typically directed to fewer
affordances in specified areas of the learning landscape by
instructors (symbolised by the uniform shapes, few in number). In
contrast, a more diverse and extensive range of affordances is on
offer at the less structured end of the landscape for practice designs
(symbolised by the rich and varied shapes and sizes available).
A form of life is a complex multi-layered system that has a
relational nature in regards to how individuals develop a functional
relationship with an ecological niche to utilise relevant affordances.
The complexity of the process of coaches’ talent selection in sports
The four cases of talent selection which can occur. The columns
represent the selection or non-selection of an athlete as a talent.
Rows represent the actual successful or unsuccessful performance or
pick as a talent of the athlete.
Average session specificity across the learning intervention. Average
specificity refers to the representativeness of the task, with a score of
100 representing a task that matches the competition demands.
This is an example of how constraints can be overloaded in elite
sport to ensure practice becomes progressively more challenging
and more representative of competition.
Average information specificity per session. Average specificity
refers to the representativeness of the task based on three
constraints that influence decision making: the presence of team
mates, opponents, and/or a scoreboard.
9
10
27
37
39
51
60
72
73
xii
5.3
6.1
6.2
6.3
7.1
7.2
8.1
8.2
11.1
11.2
11.3
12.1
12.2
13.1
13.2
13.3
13.4
13.5
List of illustrations
Cricket Australia’s guidelines for pitch length in junior cricket (grey
bars) and children’s average height (black line) from age 7 to 18 as
relative to the adult size. For instance, the average 7-year-old’s height
is 1.22cm, which is 72 per cent of the average adult height (1.69cm).
Likewise, a 14.0m pitch is 70 per cent of the full-sized pitch (20.1m).
The text in the grey bars represents the recommended pitch length for
each age. This is an example of how constraints can be progressively
overloaded in junior sport to match children’s physical capabilities.
Growth velocity curves based on Swiss longitudinal growth data
Conceptual illustration of the interaction between Relative Age
(RA)-related differences and Maturation-related (MG) growth
differences per year in boys based on longitudinal growth data.
Illustration of the different height accumulation trajectories over
chronological years according to relative age and maturationrelated categories for boys on the 50th percentile for final adult
height attained in the Swiss population.
The applied model of talent development in Norwegian handball
Developmental activities provided by club, school, regional and
national federation settings in Norwegian handball throughout
adolescence
Stages of the NTTA’s talent development program
Netherlands Table Tennis Association, National Talent Day,
1998–2016
400m ice-track with illustrations of push-off angle in the frontal
plane and knee angle in the sagittal plane
Groningen Sport Talent Model (GSTM)
Elite performance benchmarks for 1,500m long track speed skating
Geographical representation of the RFU regional academy system
Potential player attributes for DPP identification
Complementary sports for volleyball based on the matrix retrieved
from the coaches’ survey (N = 891). Figures highlight how well
other sports relate to a 100 per cent profile for the reference sport
of volleyball.
Beneficial process-oriented talent transfer for the sampling years.
Overlap of the crucial characteristics and additional elements for
broad development.
Beneficial process-oriented talent transfer for the specialising years.
Overlap of the crucial characteristics for a specialised development.
Similarities and differences between gymnastic sports for joint
development
The ecosystem of sports providers where talent identification and
development could occur
75
82
86
87
103
106
119
122
158
161
163
173
175
189
190
191
194
195
List of illustrations
xiii
Tables
4.1
Summary of heuristics and their application in general and in
talent selection
5.1 Identified constraints and their progressions
7.1 Percentage of players involved in regional player development
activities in the 2014–2015 handball season
8.1 Current test items of the motor skills assessment of the Netherlands
Table Tennis Association (faber et al., 2016)
10.1 Entry-draft process across the four major North American
professional sports leagues
12.1 England Rugby’s player development programme stages and
structure within regional academies
58
72
107
122
146
174
Contributors
Shaun Abbott, M.Ph., is a Ph.D. candidate in Exercise and Sport Science
within the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney (Aus­
tralia). In collaboration with Swimming Australia, Shaun is investigating the
influence of growth and maturation on athlete development. Shaun is also a
former swimmer.
Duarte Araújo is Associate Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Expertise
in Sport of the Faculty of Human Kinetics at the University of Lisbon, Portugal.
He is Head of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research of Human Perfor­
mance. His research on sport expertise, perception-action, learning and deci­
sion-making, has been funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.
Joseph Baker is a Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at
York University, Canada. His research examines the varying factors affecting
skill acquisition and maintenance across the lifespan. He is internationally
recognized as a world leader on the science of athlete development.
Don Barrell, M.Sc., is currently the Head of Regional Academies for England
Rugby (RFU). He has worked in talent development and coaching and pre­
viously worked at Saracens as Academy Manager and Coach. He played in
the Premiership for Saracens and for England 7s. He has completed an M.Sc.
in Coaching Science at the University of the West of England.
Sian Barris, Ph.D., is a biomechanist and skill acquisition specialist at the South
Australian Sports Institute and Cycling Australia in Adelaide (Australia). Sian
works with high-performance programs for Swimming and Track Endurance
Cycling, supporting coaches and athletes to achieve success at the Olympic
Games and other major benchmark events.
Christian Thue Bjørndal, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the Norwegian
School of Sport Sciences. His research interests focus on uncovering the
intended and unintended consequences of systems of athlete development and
sports coaching practice. Christian is a certified European Handball Federa­
tion master coach and has extensive coaching experience in handball, at youth
and elite levels.
List of contributors
xv
Tim Buszard, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Health and Sport
at Victoria University, Australia, and the Game Insight Group at Tennis
Australia. His research focuses on skill acquisition, whether it be children first
learning to play sport or skilled athletes wanting to improve. He is also an
applied skill acquisition specialist working across multiple sports.
Stephen Cobley (Ph.D., C.Psychol.) is Associate Professor within the Faculty of
Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney (Australia). His research
interests examine the developmental factors that facilitate or inhibit health and
performance from a multi-disciplinary perspective. His work has led to the
evaluation, modification and writing of athlete development programs and
policy for numerous sport organisations.
Titus Damsma is currently the head coach of the Netherlands Table Tennis
Association for the youth table tennis national teams (under 13 (boys and girls)
and under 15 (boys)) and responsible for their development program. He has
been a trainer for more than 35 years, starting as a club trainer and gradually
attaining the level of national head coach.
Keith Davids is Professor of Motor Learning at the Sport and Physical Activity
Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, investigating skill acquisition,
expertise and talent development in sport, from the perspective of Ecological
Dynamics. He has over 30 years experience of education and research in
related fields like Sports Science, Psychology, Behavioural Neuroscience, Phy­
sical Education and Human Movement Science.
Ruud den Hartigh is Associate Professor Talent Development and Creativity
in the Department of Psychology, University of Groningen (the Netherlands).
At his department, he is coordinator of the master’s program in Talent
Development and Creativity. His research focuses on the complex dynamics of
talent development, methodological approaches to talent selection, as well as
psychological momentum and resilience in sports.
Marije Elferink-Gemser is associate professor on the topic ‘Sport and Talent’
at the Department for Human Movement Sciences, University Medical
Centre, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
Irene Faber, Ph.D., is a post-doc fellow at the Sport Science Institute at the
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany) and is part of the
International Table Tennis Federation’s Sport Science and Medical Commit­
tee. Her research focuses on talent identification and development in youth
sports with a specific interest in table tennis and other racquet sports.
Lou Farah is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Kinesiology and Health Sci­
ence at York University, Canada. His research focuses on the efficacy of talent
selection and development in professional sport, with a primary focus on the
National Hockey League.
xvi
List of contributors
Marie Javet, M.Sc., is a research associate in training science at the Federal
Institute of Sport Magglingen. In collaboration with Swiss Olympic, she sup­
ports the sport federations in Switzerland implementing new instruments in the
domain of talent selection. Her research interests include talent development
and identification, with a specific focus on the biological maturity of the young
athlete.
Lyndon Krause, Ph.D., is a skill acquisition specialist with Tennis Australia and
Paralympics Australia. His area of scientific interest is the application of eco­
logical dynamics theory to improve the way in which coaches design and
implement practice for enhanced learning and transfer. Within the daily
training environment, his work emphasises the importance of creating compe­
tition-like practice scenarios for athletes to develop and enhance their skills.
Franziska Lath, M.Sc. Psychology, is research assistant and Ph.D. candidate in
the Institute of Sport Science at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Old­
enburg, Germany. Her research interest is decision-making processes of coa­
ches in talent identification and selection.
John Lawn is currently the Head of Game Development for England Rugby
(RFU). He oversees the team responsible for delivering player, coach and
match official development alongside medical and welfare support. John has
worked for England Rugby for 18 years. He is currently an RFU level 3
coach, RFU senior coach developer and World Rugby Educator.
Ben Lazenby, B.Sc. (Hons), is currently the Academy Manager for the England
Rugby licensed Academy in Yorkshire (formerly Yorkshire Carnegie Acad­
emy). Ben has extensive knowledge and experience of developing young play­
ers for professional careers in both codes of rugby with significant spells at
Warrington Wolves RLFC and now the Yorkshire Rugby Union Academy.
Matthieu Lenoir is a Professor in the Department of Movement and Sports
Sciences at Ghent University. Expertise in perceptual-motor control and
motor competence, the core themes of his research group, is currently applied
to a range of domains like early childhood development, talent identification
and development, and decision-making in sports and daily life tasks like traffic
negotiation.
Ric Lovell, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in Sport and Exercise Science at
Western Sydney University. Ric has co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed jour­
nal articles and book chapters in sports physiology, primarily in team sports.
His predominant research focus investigates optimal preparation and athletic
development strategies for soccer players, including injury prevention, talent
identification and monitoring training and match loads.
Michael Maloney, Ph.D., is a skill acquisition specialist at the South Australian
Sports Institute in Adelaide (Australia). He currently works with a number of
Olympic sports including beach volleyball, rowing, shooting, and hockey. His
List of contributors
xvii
work is guided by ecological dynamics theory, including the constraints-led
approach, representative learning design, and capturing the microstructures of
practice during learning interventions.
Luca Oppici, Ph.D., is a Post-doctoral research fellow at the Psychology of
Learning and Instruction at the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
His research focuses on strategies to promote the skill learning process, such as
augmented feedback, from a dynamical systems theory perspective. He is cur­
rently working in the Centre for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop
(CeTI), examining how an improvement of human-machine interaction can
facilitate skill learning.
Ross Pinder, Ph.D., is a skill acquisition specialist with Paralympics Australia,
supporting coaches of elite athletes. He is primarily interested in maximizing
learning and transfer of skills to competition through individualized and
representative practice designs, and supervisors multiple junior skill acquisition
practitioners and Ph.D. programmes focussed on innovative approaches to
exploring athlete and coach development.
Johan Pion, Ph.D., is Professor of Talent Identification and Development in
Sports at HAN University of Applied Science (The Netherlands) and guest
professor at Ghent University (Belgium). He has a long service record in phy­
sical education and research into sports. His research group is focused on
questions stemming from professional practice in talent detection, orientation,
identification, development and transfer.
Ian Renshaw is an Associate Professor in the School of Exercise and Nutrition
Science at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. His research
interests include an ecological dynamics approach to understanding perception
and action in sport, with emphasis on developing effective learning environ­
ments. Ian is particularly interested in the development of a nonlinear peda­
gogy for talent development, teaching and coaching of sport.
Andy Rock is the Performance Director at Bath Rugby, overseeing Sports Medicine,
Strength and Conditioning, Applied Science and Research departments at the
Premiership club. Andy has held roles as Academy Director at both Bath Rugby
and Yorkshire Carnegie RUFC, where he has developed and led multi-disciplinary
teams that have functioned at the top of the sport over the past decade.
Michael Romann, Ph.D., is head of training science at the Swiss Federal
Institute of Sport, Magglingen. His areas of scientific interest and expertise
relate to talent selection and talent development with a multidimensional per­
spective. His research and applied work has led to the modification and
implementation of new indicators in talent selection instruments with sport
federations in Switzerland.
Lars Tore Ronglan, Ph.D., is a professor in sports coaching and the current
rector at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. His research interests focus
xviii
List of contributors
on the sociology of sports coaching and leadership, athlete learning and
development. Tore is a former national handball team captain and has
extensive coaching experience from youth to elite levels.
Martyn Rothwell is a Senior Lecturer and researcher in Sport Coaching at
Sheffield Hallam University. His area of research involves investigating the
impact of environmental constraints on motor learning and the acquisition of
sport expertise, drawing insights from the work of James Gibson to understand
how environmental constraints influence the landscape of affordances available
in sporting forms of life.
Jörg Schorer is a Professor of Sport and Movement Science at the Institute of
Sport Science at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany.
His research interests are not only within the field of talent identification and
development, but also in expertise in sport throughout the lifespan, and per­
ceptual-motor skills.
Richard Shuttleworth works in applied skill acquisition and professional coach
development across national sports organizations. His research is in affor­
dances and adaptive performance behaviour at the Sport and Physical Activity
Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University. He has held positions of
Head of Professional Coach Development at England Rugby Union, and Skill
Acquisition Specialist at the Australian Institute of Sport.
Gwennyth Spruijtenburg is currently working as a junior lecturer in the
Department of Talent Identification and Development at HAN University of
Applied Science, The Netherlands. She started recently as a research assistant
at Radboud University, Nijmegen and her research focuses on sports partici­
pation and dropout.
Joseph Antony Stone is a Senior Lecturer in Performance Analysis and Skill
Acquisition within the Sport and Physical Activity Research Centre at Shef­
field Hallam University. His research focuses on performance analysis, skill
acquisition and talent development in sport guided by the theoretical frame­
work of Ecological Dynamics.
Inge Stoter is manager of Innovationlab Thialf, Heerenveen, The Netherlands.
She successfully finished her Ph.D. project ‘The road to elite performance in
1500m speed skating’ in March 2020 at the Department for Human Move­
ment Sciences, Medical Center, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
Jan Willem Teunissen is a lecturer in the Department of Talent Identification
and Development at HAN University of Applied Science (The Netherlands).
His research focusses on non-linear talent development and on talent transfer
during the sampling and the specialising years. He is co-author of the Athletic
Skills Model. He was a physical coach in first division soccer clubs in the
Netherlands.
List of contributors
xix
Kevin Till, Ph.D, ASCC, is a Professor in Athletic Development within the
Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University (UK). Kevin has pub­
lished over 120 international peer-reviewed publications related to youth ath­
letes, talent identification and development, sport science and coaching. He is
currently an S&C coach at Leeds Rhinos RLFC within their academy
programmes.
Nick Wattie is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at
Ontario Tech University. His research examines constraints on talent identifi­
cation and development in sport, sport expertise, and skill acquisition, as well
as the health outcomes associated with sport participation. He is also co-editor
of the Routledge Handbook of Talent Identification and Development in Sport.
Stijn ter Welle is a lecturer in the Department of Talent Identification and
Development at HAN University of Applied Science (The Netherlands). As a
physiotherapist he is interested in talent development, orientation, transfer and
injury prevention.
Bradley Young is a Professor in the School of Human Kinetics at the Uni­
versity of Ottawa. He researches and publishes on the psychology of optimal
practice in elite sport, with specific interest in self-regulated learning during
sport training and how athletes enhance qualities of their practice. His work
informs conceptual and applied perspectives on talent development and sport
expertise.
1
Talent Identification and
Development in Sport
An Introduction to a Field of Expanding
Research and Practice
Stephen Cobley, Joseph Baker, and Jörg Schorer
Whether attending an event or watching on TV, sporting excellence can be
simultaneously absorbing, exciting, and bewildering. As a lay observer, fan, sci­
entist or sporting practitioner (e.g., coach; talent development program coordi­
nator) understanding sporting excellence is a common topic of conversation and
investigation. In sport science, understanding the nuances of sporting excellence is
an ever-present focus, albeit the particular disciplinary lens under which investi­
gation is conducted (i.e., physiology, motor control and skill acquisition, bio­
mechanics, psychology, coaching, etc.) may vary. Irrespective of disciplinary
stance, consistent, core questions are raised, such as:
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‘What constitutes and underpins exceptionality in a given sporting context
generically (e.g., soccer; athletics), or in a particular performance task speci­
fically (e.g., long jump in athletics)?’
‘Can athletic potential be identified?’
‘How can coaches and athletes optimise their training and preparation to
attain exceptionality?’
‘How can sport-systems be designed to optimise athlete development?’
It is these questions (and others) that have stimulated growing research and
applied interest in the inter-disciplinary area of Talent Identification and Devel­
opment (TID) in sport.
Mutuality in Research and Practice Expansion – or Is One
Pulling the Other?
Whilst the origins of athletic talent identification can be traced to the formalised
training schools in Ancient Greece (Ghristopoulos, 2003), TID in sport as a
multidisciplinary research field (Piggott, Müller, Chivers, Papaluca, & Hoyne,
2018) has expanded considerably in the last two decades, particularly since pub­
lication of the first edition of this text in 2012. A literature search of key research
databases using keyword search terms (e.g., ‘talent’, ‘sport’, ‘expertise’, ‘talent
development’) as themes, and associated synonyms, identifies more than 2,700
articles published between 1990 and 2019, with an estimated 75 per cent
2
Stephen Cobley, Joseph Baker, and Jörg Schorer
published in the last ten years. Expansion is also reflected by the growth of sys­
tematic and narrative reviews of the field generally (e.g., Mann, Dehghansai, &
Baker, 2017; Johnston, Wattie, Schorer, & Baker, 2018) alongside sport-specific
reviews (e.g., soccer – Bergkamp, Niessen, den Hartigh, Frenchen, & Meijer,
2019; Sarmento, Anguera, Pereria, & Araújo, 2018; Unnithan, White, Geogiou,
Iga, & Drust, 2012). In tandem, and over the last decade, many books have been
published in both sport and other domains (e.g., The Complexity of Greatness –
Kaufman, 2013). Moreover, sport-related texts have been directed toward differ­
ing audiences, including researchers (e.g., Routledge Handbook of Talent Identification
and Development in Sport – Baker, Cobley, Schorer, & Wattie, 2017), sporting prac­
titioners (e.g., Talent Development: A Practitioners Guide – Collins & MacNamara,
2017; Developing Sport Expertise – Farrow, Baker, & MacMahon, 2013), and the
broader public (e.g., Bounce – Syed, 2010; The Sports Gene – Epstein, 2014).
The research interest in sporting TID has arguably grown in concert with, or
response to, changes in national government policy and economics, as well as the
commercialisation and globalisation of sport (Nagel, Schlesinger, Bayle, & Giau­
que, 2015). As part of what has been termed a ‘global sporting arms race’
(Oakley & Green, 2001; De Bosscher, Bingham, Shibli, van Bottenburg, & De
Knop, 2008), national governments (e.g., UK [Green & Houlihan, 2005]) have
substantially increased financial investment in national institutions (e.g., the
respective English and Australian Institutes of Sport, Canada’s Own the Podium),
whose remit has been to systematically attain elite sporting success. For govern­
ments, achieving sporting success at international events such as an Olympics or
other highly culturally valued event (e.g., FIFA World Cup) has seemingly pro­
vided political, social, and economic benefit. Partly driven by economic events
(e.g., global financial crisis) and neo-liberal economic policy, over similar timeperiods nations’ state-sponsored ‘grass-roots’ sport provision has not shown
equivalent growth. Instead, the financial reach and administrative control by
sport governing bodies has increased, along with a growing number of indepen­
dent, privatised, sport providers. (Evans & Davies, 2015). As a result, TID pro­
gramming now contains a mixture of centralised state-funded, sport governing
body, and local private sector providers.
Commercially speaking, an increase in several inter-dependent ‘top-down’ and
‘bottom-up’ demands (Gerrard, 2004) are likely responsible for increased TID
programming. ‘Top-down’ demands include corporate organisations (e.g., TV
corporations) seeking to attract consumers (audiences) to their sporting coverage.
Similarly, sporting consortiums and professional teams within elite national lea­
gues also exert top-down demands, as they seek to attract and/or develop the best
senior athletes for (inter-)national success (e.g., the National Rugby League –
Australian rugby league; the European Champions League – soccer). The impact
of top-down commercial growth is exemplified by increasing global audiences in
contexts such as the English Premier League (EPL – soccer) with an estimated
1.35 billion viewers in 2018/2019 (Premier League, 2019). In addition, new
international sporting competitions have emerged, such as Indian Premier League
(IPL) cricket and the International Swimming League (ISL), both of which attract