ABSTRACT
This article traces development of research on sports behaviours in sports contests as complex selforganizing systems using principles of coupled oscillator dynamics. In short, relative phase analysis of kinematic data of players and teams are consistent with the idea that the collective behaviours that characterize different sports contests are the result of information-based interactions among coupled dyads. That different sports on different levels of analysis may be subsumed under a common description using coupled oscillators presents good reason for continued research in this regard for advancing understanding of sports behaviours. For a review of research investigations on sports behaviours as complex self-organizing systems not predicated on coupled oscillator dynamics, the reader is directed to other chapters of this handbook as appropriate.
