Relative Age Effects and Self-Organized Sport Practices Among Adults

Purpose: Given that previous research on relative age effects (RAEs) has only focused on organized sport, the aim of this exploratory study was to examine whether this phenomenon also existed among self-organized practitioners. In relation to that, a second aim was to know whether self-organized sport practices could be favored by late-born practitioners as a result of a strategic adaptation. Method(s): Representative sub-samples of 474 soccer players, 363 basketball players, 2,536 swimmers, 1,788 strength training practitioners, 1,873 pétanque players, 973 table tennis players and 2,136 runners were analyzed. Results: The results did not show any significant RAEs, including in sport practices that are sensitive to this phenomenon such as soccer or basketball. The results did not show any significant overrepresentation of late-born people either. Conclusion: This study suggests that self-organized sport practices are not impacted by the RAEs. This finding is interesting because self-organized sport practice is the most important one in numbers.