Digital transformation and high-quality development of sports-listed companies: An analysis of vocabulary from annual report texts

•Digital transformation enhances the level of high-quality development in the sports industry.•It promotes the high-quality development of the sports industry by improving market position.•It promotes the high-quality development of the sports industry by improving innovation level. This paper selects sports-listed companies from 2013 to 2022 as the sample and employs text analysis methods to test the impact of digital transformation on the high-quality development of the sports industry. The study finds that digital transformation significantly improves high-quality development by improving the firm's market position and innovation level. These findings contribute to the promotion of continuous and stable digital transformation of sports-listed companies and offer policy and strategy guidance to manage transformation as a long-view effort.