Sport and Sustainable Development Goals in Spain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript ID: sustainability-1123651

This article presents some interesting data that I am sure will be of significant interest to practitioners and (possibly) policy makers, especially within the identified Spanish Autonomous Communities that form the basis of the paper. However, as a contribution to academic scholarship within the field of sport and sustainable development, I believe there are several shortcomings.

Chief among these is the limited engagement with the growing (and not insubstantial) critical literature pertaining to the relationship between sport and the SDGs. The manuscript does not engage with existing debates from this literature, nor does it seek to build upon them, instead appearing to uncritically accept the benefits of sport (loosely defined) in contributing to issues of sustainable development.

The paper needs to be far tighter and more explicit in its aims. While some indication is offered (lines 125-135), the paper aims are extremely vague and it would be useful to understand how the paper intends to respond to the challenges around ‘measures, standardising common indicators and methods’, etc. that the paper mentions. In addition, the Introduction (and Abstract) could be more explicit in outlining the scholarly contribution that the paper intends to offer (and its relevance to the aims/scope of this journal).

Abstract: this should be revised to make explicit what the paper aims to achieve and contribute. Also the reference to Covid-19 is a ‘red herring’ and does not seem to be relevant to this paper.

Introduction: As noted, aims need to be more explicit and these need to build from a more critical examination of the literature pertaining to sport and the SDGs.

Methods: This section lacked detail, and assumed too much on the part of the reader. It would be helpful to list the 16 qualitative indicators (line 156-159) or at least provide some reflection on why these indicators were chosen. For example, what is a ‘federative license’? Or what constitutes a ‘sports company’? What are ‘conventional’ and ‘singular’ spaces? And how/why are all of these indicators of sport’s contribution to the SDG areas identified in the paper [i.e. SDG 3, 5, 8, 10, 11]? The quality of data that could be accessed is a major concern in terms of reliability and validity (lines 160-168). Some further attempt to reflect upon the limitations of the data and the efforts to mitigate inconsistencies in data is required.

Results: These are interesting and reflect some considerable effort to collate and analyse. However, some further explanation is needed on how the ‘scores’ were ascertained (and weighted) not least in relation to SDG 5, which I did not understand.

Discussion: This section largely replicated (or at best summarised) the Results section by offering a largely descriptive account of the findings. A much more critical and analytical reflection on the findings is needed, along with some reflection on why these Results may have been observed. This is a must for any revision.

Conclusion: Some recommendations are offered but these do not explicitly emanate out from the findings of this study. Therefore, this section needs to include some reflection back on the initial study aims, along with some reflection on the broader application from these results to global discussions on sport and sustainable development. Also, and most importantly, the Conclusion fails to include a single reference, which reinforces my earlier point about the lack of (critical) connection to the ‘sport and SDG’ literature, and the absence of a clear critical contribution to the scholarship in this area.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors:

Thank you for your professional work on Sport and Sustainable Development Goals. Please see below my comments:

Line 26: Please include parenthesis (SDGs).

Line 27: Please provide a few more sentences as part of your first paragraph. For example,e explain in more detail what the agreed plan is and how it works.

Line 27: [1] can be included at the end of the sentence (s)

Line 28-35: Please include references

Line 36-42: Please include references-especially on your quotations "__" - they must refer to a source.

Line 49: Please use sports or sport  with consistency

Line 150-187: Please include references that support your methods.

Line 181: Please explain with valid sources the accuracy of your methodology and the rating system

I hope my comments will be useful for your work.

Thank you.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors use SDG scores to quantify sport practice and gender equality in different spanish autonomous communities. in relation to SDGs. They demonstrate differences and provide interesting hypothesis after a social analysis.  The indicators they provide may also be used in further studies, around the world.

I would have like the material and methods section and the legends of tables 1 to 5 to be more informative. I did not understand the mathematical calculation leading to the SDG scores in those tables (last columns). 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I thank the authors for the amendments that have been made in response to my original review. I believe that the paper is improved, but still contains limitations regarding the overall coherence between aims, results and conclusion.

Conceptually, the paper has been tightened to reflect a focus on policy coherence. But this needs to be more explicit in the Introduction. There is some discussion of policy coherence in the Introduction, but this isn’t very specific (rather tokenistic). For example, in the Abstract it reads ‘it will be necessary to take into account the concept of “policy coherence” in both its vertical and horizontal dimensions.’ These dimensions are not explained in the Introduction, and reference is not made to them until the Conclusion. As we aren’t introduced to these dimensions, we cannot make a judgment on how this relates to the results from this study.

In the original review I mentioned that it would be useful to understand how the paper intends to respond to the challenges around ‘measures, standardising common indicators and methods’, etc. that the paper mentions. There is still no indication as to how these challenges are/might be addressed by the paper (and therefore, the scholarly contribution that the article wishes to make).

The Methods section is much clearer and the inclusion of the Tables is very helpful. However, while more detail has been provided, there is still confusion over the terminology used in Table 2.

A paragraph has been added to the Discussion but this does not address my earlier concerns regarding the limited critical and analytical reach of this section. The Conclusion requires the reader to make a significant leap of faith to accept that the descriptive results presented in this paper should instigate a State strategy (without offering any critically-derived suggestions as to what might be included in such a strategy).

As noted above, the Conclusion makes reference to policy coherence along horizontal and vertical dimensions without explaining what this is. This would make for a useful framework on which to analysis the results so perhaps consider this. I am also not convinced that the Results translate into the Conclusion offered.

 

Author Response

Please find attached cover letter with suggested changes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for you updates and improvement of your manuscript.

I am satisfied with the current manuscript and I leave the final decision to the editors.

Thank you.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your decision

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

 I am happy to accept the manuscript for publication. There are some typographical errors that I detected but I suspect these will be ironed out in the final copy editing.