social epidemiological perspective on local tennis league participation

Purpose – The purpose of the current research was to examine the different relationships between individuals’ sense of community in sport (SCS) cultivated by participating in local sport leagues, social support and health-related psychological outcomes (i.e., depressive symptoms and happiness) based on the participants’ involvement level in the tennis league. Design/methodology/approach – Using participants (n 5 150) from local tennis leagues in the Southeastern region of the USA, the authors first conducted an instrument validation procedure to assess the psychometric properties of the included measures, and second, the authors analyzed the proposed multigroup moderated-mediation structural model using component-based partial least squares structural equation modeling with SmartPLS 3 (Ringle et al., 2015). Findings – The results provide adequate evidence of reliability and validity for both the included reflective and formative constructs. Further, the findings of the proposed moderated-mediation structural model indicated that SCS was positively and significantly associated with social support and happiness while negatively related with depressive symptoms. Social support only mediated the relationship between SCS and happiness. The multigroup analysis results showed significant differences in the relationship between social support and happiness between the least involved group and more involved groups. Originality/value – The findings of this study indicated that SCS experienced through participation in local sport leagues can develop both the extent and quality of supportive social relationships with other engaging members. One conclusion from the findings is recognizing a need to develop interventions to enhance SCS, social support and health-related psychological outcomes through local sport league participation. Keywords Community sport participation, Sport involvement, Sense of community, Local sport leagues, Social support, Happiness, Depressive symptoms, Depression, Social epidemiology