The sports industry has become a field open to technology integration alongside digital transformation. Blockchain technology, with its features of decentralization, transparency, immutability, and security, holds the potential to offer solutions to some of the problems within the sports sector. This study aims to present a systematic review of the academic literature on blockchain applications in the sports industry between 2018 and 2025. A search conducted in the Web of Knowledge database using the keyword "blockchain and sports" yielded 100 academic works. Following the application of inclusion criteria (English articles published between 2018-2025 and index limitations), 76 articles were utilized in the study. Within the scope of the research, the trends in academic publications were visually mapped using keywords. According to the analysis results, the country receiving the most citations is China with 96 citations. The authors receiving the most citations were identified as Mansoor Ali, Ekrem Hossain, Georges Kaddoum, and Faisal Naeem (43 citations), followed by David Vidal-Tomas (28 citations). In the co-author analysis, Salil Bharany, Seada Hussen, Upinder Kaur, Visal Mehra, Ateeq Ur Rehman, Ravinder Singh Sawhney, and Prabhsimran Singh stood out with 6 connections each. In the keyword analysis, blockchain (19 occurrences), cryptocurrency (8 occurrences), blockchain technology (7 occurrences), sports (6 occurrences), smart contract (4 occurrences), and security (3 occurrences) were the most frequently used terms. In the co-citation analysis, the author receiving the most citations was identified as Ante, I. with 12 citations. In conclusion, this bibliometric analysis reveals that blockchain technology is an early-stage but rapidly developing research area in the sports industry, while highlighting the need for more interdisciplinary and application-focused studies on topics such as NFTs, fan tokens, smart contracts, and digital fan engagement. It is anticipated that this study will provide researchers with a comprehensive perspective and contribute to the field.