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The paper aims to revisit the debate on the priorities of football clubs in talent hiring with respect to maximizing sporting performance or economic profitability. Based on the degree of media exposure of the clubs, we examine whether the clubs’ objectives include, in addition to the classic twofold choice, the aspiration of club managers to gain popularity through media exposure.

This paper applies structural equation modelling (path analysis) techniques to re-examine what is the more realistic description of football club owners’ decisions when hiring talent. Our database comprises teams from the first division of four top European football leagues: 80 observations per season during the pre-COVID period spanning from 2009/10 to 2017/18.

The results suggest that, when recruiting players, in addition to considering the two classic objectives (wins and profits), club owners also seem to aim expanding the media exposure and popularity of their clubs. Our study reveals that, to explain talent-hiring decisions in football, the ability to attract media attention is as crucial as sporting performance could be. Furthermore, by examining the direct, indirect and total effects on annual revenue, we found that our media visibility index performs a mediation effect connecting sports performance and revenue.

An innovative feature of our analysis is the use of the MERIT media visibility index, which jointly captures the on-field and off-field players’ skills. The consistency and robustness of the results derive from the various specifications of the estimated models.

The credibility crisis of science is a growing topic of investigation. This study approaches the problem from the sustainability of the scholarly communication system by merging argumentation with information science.

Coding and content analysis drawing from a well-established textual argumentative tradition; a novel non-textual approach to complex communication and, an overlooked definition of sustainable information, were applied to 34 research works. The retrieval was carried out using Inciteful, a tool exploring literature networks. Additional information, such as keywords, mapping to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and citations were acquired through the OpenAlex API. Operationalisation of concepts from the theoretical framework underpinned the selection and analysis of documents.

Scholars virtually involve peers, funding agencies, research councils, policymakers, experts, practitioners and representatives of the public in their formal written production. The described coalitions are occasional, while the needed ones are deep. Three forms of scholarly communication were found: traditional, dialogical and complex depending on the involved audiences. The sample tells us about the sustainability of the scientific communication system and the impact it may have on the public construction of imaginaries of science.

This investigation frames scholars, their products and societies as intertwined dialogical entities constantly communicating and impacting each other. Direct and indirect forms of scholarly communications are addressed too, showing how poor sustainability in these processes may entail a failure to reach different layers of societies.