Who Is Thibault #

I am a researcher holding a PhD in Sport Management (focus sport digitalisation and virtual sports) from Ghent University (Belgium). I am affiliated with the sport management research group at the Department of Movement and Sports Sciences at Ghent University, currently being employed there as a researcher and teaching assistant until the end of my (PhD/assistant) term in March 2027 (defended PhD earlier within my term). I have a multidisciplinary background with a Bachelor in Applied Computer Science, a Master in Communication Science (specialisation New Media & Society), and a Master in Business Economics. In my spare time I am passionate about technology, sports and specifically triathlon, which sparked my interest in Sport Management and sport digitalisation. During the course of my PhD, I founded the Virtual Sports Research Network and this science communication and blogging website.

Why I Founded This Website #

I founded this website because I find it important as a scientist to communicate accessibly about my research. Not only to fellow academics, but also to a broader audience who isn’t familiar with the topic but should nonetheless be able to understand what the research is about and why it matters. Also one of my main research topics, Virtual Sports, is a relatively new concept and not yet widely understood. By creating this website, I aim to address this gap and explain virtual sports to a broader audience. I want to provide accessible introductions to the topic as well as in-depth discussion of scientific research on virtual sports for academics, governing bodies, policy makers and industry stakeholders in the sports sector.

In addition, it became apparent to me that there was no easy overview of researchers engaging with virtual sports. Researchers engaging with virtual sports are often scattered across disciplines in academic literature (e.g. Sport Management, Information Systems, Human-Computer Interaction, Media Studies, Sports Sciences, Sociology) and use different keywords to describe their research (e.g. eSports, metasports, virtual active sports, digital sports, gamified sports, exergaming, virtual environments, etc.). To provide a holistic overview of experts active around virtual sports, though rooted in different disciplines and using different language, I founded the Virtual Sports Research Network and this website acts as a front page and communication hub for it. My goal with founding this network is to connect researchers, give them a forum, and grow this platform into a go-to resource for Virtual Sports research, science communication and a point of contact for anyone interested in this evolving domain.

Thibault’s Research #

My PhD Research (full reference in Biblio UGent) is available here in full text open access here or UGent Biblio. It focuses on the emergence of virtual sports disciplines and their impact for sport organisations and sport policy. I centred my studies around the empirical case of virtual cycling to analyse when disciplines can be considered “virtual”, how virtual disciplines can be strategically adopted by sport organisations, and what is needed in terms of institutional collaborations, digitisation, and sport governance to truly legitimise virtual disciplines. You can find a summary of my PhD in the text (p. X) and of the five empirical studies included (Table 4, p. 94).

Alternatively, I have attached the leaflet summary of my PhD below. Do not hesitate to contact me to discuss anything on the topics of innovation, sports, sport digitalisation, strategy and of course science communication. You’re more than welcome!