Guest editorial: Sociology of sports in Hong Kong after COVID-19: individual behavior, organizational dynamics and business opportunities

Introduction by guest editors: Why do we have this issue?This special issue aims to develop a collection of thematic analysis on a well-known but surprisingly under-explored phenomenon in the post-COVID-19 societythe emergence of sport "fever" after the prolonged lockdown and suspension of both team and individual sports.The COVID-19 infection and lockdown of society, awareness of sports activities on physical and mental well-being for the prevention of chronic diseases, quick drop of individual physique suspension: the sudden and unprecedented public health crisis has been a gateway for in-depth reflection and fundamental shift of paradigm and pre-deposited perception on sports participation (Alam and Abdurraheem, 2023;Byers et al., 2022;Smith and Skinner, 2022).The government's anti-epidemic measures, including lockdown, social distancing and vaccination, brought both intended and unintended consequences to the sports contexts.There were new modes of individual sports involvement.The pandemic has accelerated existing trends concerning health as well.An immediate impact of the COVID-19 health crisis is an elevation of the importance of exercise.The stigma of physical activities and sports undertake significant changes, and the casualties are arising from the unprecedented virus.It witnesses the prop up of regular joggers, gymnasiums and yoga lovers and, thus, a quick boom of related businesses.Sports events have generally recorded a quick rebound in attendance immediately after the resumption of "normality" (Hong Kong SAR Government, 2024) [1].It is also frequently reported the side effects of inappropriate or unproportionately "over-exercise" that are beyond the individual's capacity and sports injuries are increasingly reported.In general, there has been a fundamental transformation of the worldwide mobility pattern in cities, on the perception of lifestyles and work-life balance, and the ways and means of participation in sports.Home offices have become popular, and inter-cities business travelers have been replaced by the boom of leisure in-depth visit passengers after the suspension.The sports population has significantly increased amid the increasing awareness and concern over health.There has been a reshuffle in the sports, health and leisure industries.Sports industry personnel), keep themselves alive and thus need to get a lot of innovative methods.In 2023, in Hong Kong, we witnessed the realignment of sports associations under the new "normal."We also acknowledge the rapid increase in sports participants eager to strengthen themselves after the health panic.The sports industry also rebounds quickly, as shown by the soaring sales of mechanizes and prop up of sports events.Academically, we notice the attempts by experts in different fields of social sciences to adopt "COVID-19" as a time spot calling for high-quality analysis to capture this unprecedented challenge to the community in a hundred years.In the sociology of sports, Malcolm (2023) has proposed to research the latest trend of "healthism" in the post-COVID era-the "paradigm shift" for the meaning of sports activities to individual, country and international interactions.