Introduction: State of Literature Special Issue

Thirty-five years have passed since the first issue of the Journal of Sport Management (JSM) was published, and the literature in sport management, including the theory produced and applied, has advanced considerably over the years (Cunningham et al., 2021). Given this advancement, this special issue was structured differently, by design, from past special issues in the JSM. We asked for teams of scholars that were international, a mix of more established scholars and junior scholars, and scholars who possessed divergent views on a topic to engage multiple perspectives, all traits that point to a maturing field of study—such teams would be difficult to assemble in an undeveloped field of study. In structuring the special issue in this manner, we sought a collection of manuscripts that highlight and critique the state of the sport management literature for a range of different topics to extend conversation and provide guides to future research, research that may address more immediate questions as well as research that may move the study of a topic in entirely different directions.