Anniversary Issue: Editor's Introduction

Abstract

In April of 2000, the inaugural issue of the Journal of Sports Economics was published, with an official date of February, 2000. This anniversary issue ostensibly marks 20 years of the Journal, but by the time of publication 22 years will have elapsed since that first issue. The tardiness of this anniversary issue is because, to borrow from Leo Kahane’s description of publication of that first issue, in the first essay, “the editorial staff was a bit behind piecing the issue together.” In this case, however, the editorial staff is me. Indeed, the idea of this issue did not occur to me until after I had received through the normal submission process two of the articles in this issue, those by Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez, Julio del Corral and Placido Rodriguez, and Dominik Schreyer and Payam Ansari. Consequently, I thank those authors both for their contributions to this issue and for the nudge I needed to begin organizing this anniversary issue. Once Carlos, Julio, Placido, Dominik and Payam all agreed to letting me delay evaluation and publication of their papers while I sought additional contributions to the special issue, I began in earnest to organize the issue. The first step was to solicit a contribution from Leo who founded and then edited the Journal for 16 years. Leo quickly agreed and his comments follow as the first essay in the issue. Leo also suggested some individuals to invite for submissions. I wanted a mix of Americans and Europeans to contribute to the issue, so I reached out to Wladimir Andreff and Rob Simmons to represent Europe, and Roger Noll and Rod Fort for the United States. Finally, Brad Humphreys proposed a project he had with his student Clay Collins which he thought would fit nicely into the anniversary issue, and I agreed. Kahane’s reflections on the founding of the Journal and its development over his 16 years as the editor highlight several facts about the success of the Journal as of the end of his editorship. Among these are the impact factor, the ranking, number of subscribers, submissions, and downloads. The tremendous growth he documents has