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A SNAPSHOT OF SPORT MANAGEMENT FACULTY PUBLICATIONS AND 

PRESENTATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 

 

John David Smith 

Louisiana State University 

 

Abstract: The field of sport management has seen tremendous growth over the past four decades. However, it is 

still considered a young discipline compared to business schools. This paper reviews the discussions of past Dr. 

Earle F. Zeigler Award winners on the credibility, status, legitimacy, and identity of the sport management field. 

The paper also discusses the concerns of past award winners and their recommendations for the future of the 

field. 

Keywords: Sport management, Dr. Earle F. Zeigler Award, Credibility, Status, Legitimacy,Identity 

 

 

1.  Introduction  

Over the past four decades, the academic field of sport management has seen tremendous growth around the 

world. Since the inception of the first sport management master’s degree offering at Ohio University in 1966 

(Stier, 1993), institutions that offer sport management degrees (i.e., undergraduate and/or graduate degrees) have 

grown from 44 programs in 1982 (Lewis, 1982; Parkhouse, 1987) to 211 programs in 1993 (Weese, 1995), to a 

recent level of 462 sport management programs in the United States, 17 sport management programs in Canada, 

26 in Europe, 18 in Asia and 13 in Australia (NASSM, 2015a).  

While this growth has occurred in a short amount of time, the sport management field is still considered a young 

discipline compared to the likes of business schools around North America and the rest of the world (Chalip, 

2006; Doherty, 2012; Mahony & Pitts, 1998).   

Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing today, scholars used platforms such as the North American Society 

for Sport Management (NASSM) conference and the Journal of Sport Management to discuss topical issues. 

During the NASSM Annual Conference, the Dr. Earle F. Zeigler Award winner often offers feedback about their 

experiences to the NASSM constituents in attendance as well as through the subsequent publication in the Journal 

of Sport Management. Award winners often focus their discussions on broad areas such as credibility, status, 

legitimacy, and identity. In addition to offering recommendations for the future of the sport management field, 

award winners also express their concerns. Areas of concern such as the need to shift to a broad-based “domain” 

of sport management (Slack, 1996, p. 97), and the call to examine all aspects that affect the overall credibility of 

the sport management field (Pitts, 2001) were addressed in the past. Further concerns of past award winners 

critically reviewed “teaching, practice and research” (Frisby, 2005, p. 1) within the field in addition to the 

opportunities for sport management to solidify its own identity (Chalip, 2006).  

It was Pitts’ article (2001) and her Zeigler Award lecture that drives the current research. Her primary concern 

was related to the “the state of the field” (p. 8). As a relatively young field, sport management has improved upon 

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its proverbial reputation (Chalip, 2006; Parkhouse & Pitts, 2001; Pitts, 2001) year after year. These improvements 

have not been easy as the field of sport management is interdisciplinary in its own right and does not “fit neatly” 

as a single discipline like sociology or law (Shilbury & Rentschler, 2007, p. 31). With certain identity struggles, 

it was Pitts (2001) that suggested the need to hold those in the field of sport management accountable through 

areas such as assessment and to be critical of their work and future work to build upon the growth of the field. 

Critical analysis of organizations can be the lifeblood for improvement. According to Weese (1995) and Cuneen 

and Parks (1997), the NASSM contingency should be continually evaluated to build upon the mission of the 

society to better the relationship between academics and practitioners. Previous studies on the improvements of 

sport management programs previously focused on the assessment of topics such as sport management curriculum 

(DeSensi, Kelley, Blanton, & Beitel, 1990; Eagleman & McNary, 2010; Hardy, 1987; Kelley, Beitel, DeSensi, & 

Blanton, 1994; Parkhouse, 1987; Petersen & Pierce, 2009; Floyd-Jones, Brooks, & Mak, 2008) and faculty 

preparation and qualifications (De Haan, 2011; Mahony, Mondello, Hums, & Judd, 2004; Nite & Singer, 2013).   

The purpose of the current study fills a gap in the assessment literature through the exploration of sport 

management faculty career profile characteristics of journal publications and conference presentations to continue 

the efforts of assessment within the field. 

A population of 479 NASSM documented sport management programs in the United States and Canada were 

reviewed for sport management faculty career profile characteristics. These characteristics were previously 

deemed by several scholars as necessary toward possibilities of enhancing the growth and credibility of the 

academic field of sport management (Costa, 2005; Doherty, 2012; Pitts, 2001; Slack, 1991, 1996). This type of 

assessment provides a unique look at a large component of what academics do to maintain standards institutions 

and faculty set for them that may translate into the field’s overall growth.  

Therefore, the research question related to this purpose becomes what journal publications and conference 

presentations are represented by sport management faculty in North America? Results from this type of research 

can prove beneficial in several ways. First, it adds to the sport management assessment literature to give a 

distinctive first look at where academics are in relation to their publications and conference presentations. Next, 

sport management faculty may begin or continue to focus their efforts towards a variety of conferences or journals 

to broaden their own career domain. Additionally, this research is beneficial for the leaders of the sport 

management field (i.e., NASSM executive committee) as they may accumulate additional ideas for future 

conference and journal themes or additional partnerships with organizations not previously considered. The 

downside of conducting this research was there are no comparable studies related to sport management faculty 

career characteristics. 

The ability to see if the field is showing improvements and declines or make predictions compared to previous 

and leans on the side of futility without previous empirical evidence.  

This paper is organized into several parts beginning with a literature review regarding the variance of perspectives 

areas such as credibility have in academia. The credibility section below was deemed necessary for this research 

as subjective credibility discussions often stem from assessment literature but rarely review the intentions of 

credibility holistically. Since the current research is the first of its kind, this same literature review includes an 

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overview of several forms of previous sport management field assessment research. Next, the methods are 

discussed expanding on the data gathering and analysis procedures. This is followed by the results of sport 

management faculty career characteristics and discussion of these findings, concluding with limitations and 

recommendations for future research.   

2.1 Literature Review  

Several of the past and present trailblazers of the sport management field argue that assessment is critical to its 

growth. These same researchers often use the term credibility to describe aspects of this growth, however, 

credibility is difficult to measure, if at all, and at the least is a subjective term. Regardless of attempting to measure 

credibility, (which the current research is not) recognizing areas within academia that should be assessed must be 

considered paramount. Improving the idea of credibility (with or without measurement), as Doherty (2012) 

suggests below, within those directly related to the field of sport management academia is necessary.  

 “We should think outside the lines: Critique what we each have done to date, and reflect on what else we might 

do; and, look across our respective units, faculties and universities, and consider what other disciplines and 

particular research projects resonate with our own.” (p. 8) 

The current research does not suggest that if assessment occurs and improvements are made from such an 

assessment, that credibility would improve. The current research simply highlights credibility as a necessary 

component to the assessment discussion.  

2.2 Credibility 

The concept of credibility stems from several theoretical perspectives that include legitimacy, status, and 

reputation. According to Suchman (1995) legitimacy is “a generalized perception or assumption that the actions 

of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, 

and definitions” (p. 574). Washington and Zajac (2005) suggested that status relates to the social aspects 

developed through relationships and those relationships develop sequential organization. Deephouse and 

Suchman (2008) defined reputation as “a generalized expectation about a firm’s future behaviour or performance 

based on collective perceptions (either direct or, more often, vicarious) of past behaviour or performance” (p. 59-

60). It is apparent here that credibility is a multi-level concept that refers to a source of reliable information 

(Bocking, 2004), in addition to the expertise and trustworthiness of such information (Hovland, Janis, & Kelly, 

1953; Metzger, 2007). It can be seen by the above definitions that through establishing credibility for an 

organization, concepts such as legitimacy, status, and reputation follow. “Organizations that are of high quality 

can develop reputations for quality over time, which can then serve a useful signaling function when other forms 

of direct and credible information on quality are lacking” (Washington & Zajac, 2005, p. 283).  

Efforts to improve credibility within the sport management field were recognized by several scholars through 

assessment of (i) education quality and accreditation (Fielding, Pitts, & Miller, 1991), (ii) increased specialization 

in sport management (Mahony & Pitts, 1998), (iii) consideration of where sport management programs should 

be housed within a college or university (Chalip, 2006), and the (iv) improvement of interdisciplinary research 

within the field (Doherty, 2012). While these and other areas of assessment are valid towards improving 

perceptions of the sport management field as a whole, bridging the gap between assessment and credibility, and 

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understanding that any assessment is another step towards credibility, begins with the ambiguity of the term 

credibility. Addressing credibility here is important, as numerous sport management researchers have used the 

term in the past to describe the state of the field. Parkhouse (1987) referred to the term “credibility” (p. 94) with 

regard to the future of the industry where she expressed meaningful concerns about the quality of the sport 

management curricula.  

Boucher (1998) argued that the sport management field’s credibility could be lost in academic circles through the 

selection of research problems that are self-serving as opposed to having purposeful applications for practicing 

sport managers. These views are slightly limited in nature as they each relate to only one aspect of the sport 

management field.  

Cutting through the ambiguity of understanding credibility, Pitts (2001) provided a holistic definition of 

credibility described as the “quality, accountability, and credentials” (p. 7) among the field. Pitts (2001) suggested 

that areas in which to improve credibility lie among criteria such as guidelines, curriculum and accreditation, and 

faculty preparation and qualifications. She goes on to designate other areas necessary to analyze and boost 

credibility. Pitts (2001) stated that to “attain and sustain” (p. 7) credibility, its members must measure and assess 

its merit in several areas including conference representation, industry literature, and scholarly association. By 

establishing a holistic definition rather than a varied definition of credibility assumed by previous scholars, the 

field of sport management can continue to assess itself with a clear level of critical analysis.  

This critical analysis was shown by Costa (2005) through her indications of credibility enhancement using a 

Delphi Study by enlisting 17 leading sport management scholars to provide their professional opinions regarding 

the status and future of the field. Costa further explained that improvements to sport management program’s 

infrastructure (e.g., journal publication acceptance) would help attain increased status. The term infrastructure 

can be linked to the term credibility, as Costa (2005) suggested “the status of the field is related to the field’s 

infrastructure, particularly university programs, recognition and reward systems, and publication outlets” (p. 

130). 

While Pitts (2001) and Costa (2005) called for credibility improvements among several infrastructural areas, 

others have proclaimed an upgrade in areas such as research design (Frisby, 2005; Olafson, 1990) and in an 

accreditation process (Boucher, 1998; FloydJones et al., 2008; Mahoney & Pitts, 1998). However, it was Slack 

(1991, 1996) who envisioned the best intentions of success for the field by suggesting that a broadening of 

practitioner and researcher endeavors are necessary to be influential amongst all academics, not simply sport 

management academics.  

However, establishing ourselves as the experts in the management of sport will not only require us to broaden the 

range of organizations that we study, it will also necessitate a considerable change in the theoretical bases or our 

work, a broadening of the places we publish and present our research, a re-examination of the topics we study 

and the adoption of new approaches to doing research. (Slack, 1996, p. 98-99)  

It was this quote by Slack (1996) in addition to Pitts’ (2001) definition of credibility that drives the current 

research to expand the assessment of the sport management field by studying its members.   

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2.3 Sport management program assessment  

The importance of academic program assessment is to determine whether the program has merit (Cuneen, 2004). 

Assessment in sport management previously focused on areas such as sport management curricula and the 

preparation for becoming a sport management faculty member.  

Establishing quality curriculum for any academic program, including sport management, is a primary tenant for 

the United States Department of Education accreditation process. The common goal for colleges and universities 

must be “to ensure that education provided by institutions of higher education meets acceptable levels of quality” 

(US Department of Education, 2014, n.p.).    

In 1986, the National Association for Sports and Physical Activity (NASPE) developed a special committee to 

identify and develop guidelines for college and university programs that offered sports and sport management 

classes. Shortly thereafter, the NASPE partnered with NASSM to develop an accreditation process strictly for 

sport management programs (Eagleman & McNary, 2010). Between 1990 and 2009, numerous sport management 

scholars suggested or directly recommended the necessity to have an accreditation body for sport management 

(c.f., Fielding et al., 1991; Mahoney et al, 2004; Zakrajsek, 1993). Currently, the Commission on Sport 

Management Accreditation (COSMA) is the lone accreditation body for sport management academia. As of 

March 2015, COSMA has accredited 42 sport management programs with 14 programs in the candidacy stages 

(NASSM Newsletter, 2015).  

With the NASSM and COSMA membership base continuing to expand, continued assessment of the sport 

management field is essential to properly manage such growth (Amis & Silk, 2005; Chalip, 2006; Cuneen & 

Parks, 1997; Pitts, 2001).  

2.4 Curriculum assessment  

Scholars have previously indicated that studies regarding assessment of sport management curriculum are limited 

(Eagleman & McNary, 2010). Over the course of the last several decades, however, several important studies 

have assessed curriculum in an investigative manner. Shortly after the establishment of NASSM and the Journal 

of Sport Management, Parkhouse (1987) analyzed the status of curricula for 83 institutions with sport 

management programs. Data was collected in the areas of undergraduate and graduate foundational and applicable 

sport management subject areas. Her findings suggested that many of these sport management programs did not 

offer a consistent base for sport management course offerings. DeSensi, Kelly, Blanton, and Beitel (1990) 

reviewed the perspectives of sport management constituents (e.g., employers, academics, and students) in 

developing curricula models to aid curricula developers and determine the appropriate course for a sport 

management program. Similarly, Fielding et al. (1991) reached out to 109 sport management programs in North 

America to collectively determine the characteristics of a quality program. Although many responses were 

conflicting, results suggested that characteristics necessary for a quality sport management program revolved 

around the education of the instructors and the coursework offered to its students.  

More recent assessment of sport management curricula used a distinctive approach when Petersen and Pierce 

(2009) surveyed sport industry professionals (e.g., NFL, MLB, and the NBA). The results from 32 surveys evenly 

collected from these professional sport associations indicated that a student’s field experience was most important 

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followed by legal aspects, ethics, management and leadership, marketing, economics, budget and finance, 

governance, and socio-cultural aspects.   

Shortly thereafter, and using a quantitative content analysis methodology, Eagleman and McNary (2010) 

examined 227 undergraduate sport management programs using COSMA guidelines as a means for the analysis. 

Results concluded that curriculum offered among the sample sport management programs in the study was 

inconsistent and, in fact, the course offerings varied greatly. These results showed that many sport management 

programs were not meeting the academic standards (i.e., curriculum) related to career preparation requested by 

sport industry professionals.  

2.5 Faculty preparation  

Sport management academics have long been concerned about their own development as teachers, researchers, 

and community builders. It was Weese (1995) that broke the proverbial silence and called out sport management 

academics to upgrade their own research agendas to meet the needs of a wider audience, such as the general 

business industry, rather than be limited to the sport industry. Cuneen and Parks (2001) added to this by suggesting 

that sport management faculty expand their own dialogue in relation to professional preparation. Weese (2002) 

reiterated his own sentiments by strongly advocating the need for properly trained sport management faculty, as 

this need may not meet the demand of students in existing programs. He noted that sport management 

undergraduate and graduate programs would continue to expand with hurdles likely to follow without proper 

leadership. Hurdles such as “under-employment” (p. 15) of students may occur without quality faculty to provide 

students with sound decision making skills and the ability to communicate effectively. He also referenced 

Mondello, Mahony, Hums, and Moorman (2002) and the importance of their study in which sport management 

search committee chairs were discouraged by the lack of qualified sport management candidates.  

Weese’s previous concerns have spurred other studies related to the preparation of sport management faculty, 

including the Mahony et al. (2004) review of 24 doctoral programs in North America. They directed their research 

towards gathering data on doctoral graduates produced each year, including the skills and qualities being 

developed during their programs. These results were then cross-referenced against sport management job 

qualifications advertised during the time of data collection. Conclusions from this study suggested that doctoral 

programs place high emphasis on teaching and research; however, not all doctoral programs have sport 

management undergraduate programs, which limits the opportunity for doctoral candidates to hone their teaching 

abilities leading into their first years of academic teaching.  

2.6 Faculty profile research 

Research is limited from the perspective of reviewing faculty profile characteristics. Floyd-Jones et al. (2008) did 

however provide an overview of 50 sport management programs responding to a survey consisting of 

infrastructure characteristics (c.f., Costa, 2005) such as program profile (including program size, approval status, 

admittance requirements, and faculty/student ratio) and faculty profile (including adjunct faculty members, 

gender, ethnicity, terminal degrees).   

Additional highlights of these results showed a lack of diversity (e.g., gender and ethnicity) among faculty, as 

well as employing faculty without a terminal degree. Floyd-Jones et al. (2008) did collect one specific faculty 

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career characteristic in research interests, but the results were unclear as to specific research interest topics, 

simply noting that 68.2% of respondents “had a strong research interest” (p. 87). The Floyd-Jones et al. study did 

offer a glimpse of conference results similar to the results found in this study in addition to faculty profile data, 

however, the authors offered limited direction toward other faculty characteristics. They found their respondents 

attended top sport management conferences of NASSM and the American Alliance for Health, Physical 

Education, Recreation and Dance. Floyd-Jones and colleagues concluded their outline of sport management 

programs by offering recommendations for sport management programs in the area of hiring more females in 

addition to seeking out accreditation status.  

The present research assesses the sport management field faculty constituency and their career characteristics of 

journal publications and conference presentations. This research is timely as it adds to the existing literature of 

assessment from a distinct perspective and expands the discussion to enhance the growth and credibility of the 

field. “We must be vigilant in critically examining all that we have accomplished, make changes as needed, and 

push ourselves to grow” (Pitts, 2001, p. 7).  

3.1 Method  

The current research was descriptive in nature. According to Andrew, Pedersen, and McEvoy (2011), descriptive 

research is appropriate when a study concentrates on “what is happening rather than on why it happens” (p. 8). 

Slack (1991, 1996) and Pitts (2001) call for sport management academics to broaden their career characteristics 

outlook focused the current research, but less is known about sport management faculty career characteristics 

such as journal publications and conference presentations. The data collected concentrated on faculty listed 

journal publications and conference presentations. 

The sport management faculty population was obtained via the NASSM website by clicking on all represented 

sport management program links. All sport management programs in the United States and Canada that offered 

a bachelor, masters, and Ph.D., or a combination of these three types of degrees listed on the NASSM website 

were reviewed for available faculty career characteristics.    

3.2 Data collection  

At the completion of data collection, NASSM provided direct website links to 479 sport management programs 

(462 in the United States and 17 in Canada). A list of college and university names was accompanied by a hyper-

link that was associated with each institution on the NASSM website. All functional links were utilized and 

reviewed. In the event a link did not work, a simple Internet search was conducted for that sport management 

program’s main web page. From the NASSM website a three-phase search process for sport management faculty 

profiles ensued. The three-phase search process for faculty journal publications and conference presentations.  

The NASSM website served as a one-stop shop for many of the sport management programs around North 

America. One click here presented all fee paying sport management programs associated with NASSM. This list 

of programs provided sport management main web pages offering direct links to aid in searching for faculty 

profiles, this was considered phase one of the data collection process. If a faculty list link was not found on the 

main sport management program website during the phase one process, phase two followed and the use of the 

main institution’s search engine was enacted with the key terms such as sport management, sport administration, 

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sport leadership and sport studies were inserted in the search bar. If a search did not produce a list of members 

of the sport management full-time faculty, the program was coded as ‘Sport Management Full-Time Faculty Not 

Applicable’ in the main Microsoft Excel database.  

If the phase-two search produced only a sport management faculty name or list of names, the institution’s search 

function was used once again by searching each individual’s name for faculty profiles. This process was 

considered the third search phase. If this list did not produce career profiles, the individual(s) were calculated as 

part of the total faculty data set and no journal or conference data were calculated.  

If a curriculum vita was available it was considered a part of the faculty profile, collected as data, reviewed, and 

analyzed for this study. For the purpose of this study, conference presentation and journal publication data were 

collected through faculty member profiles or curriculum vita. Faculty members with at least one conference 

presentation or one journal publication were counted (c.f. Buchheit, Collins, & Reitenga, 2002; Hasselback, 

Reinstein, & Schwan, 2000). All titles of each conference presentation and journal publication that were available 

on its program’s website (i.e., faculty profile or curriculum vitae) were collected and inputted into the master 

database for analysis.  

Individuals with job title designation of Adjunct Faculty, Instructor, or not labelled (<10) were not included in 

the data collection. During the data collection process it was determined that there was no way of knowing if a 

sport management faculty member did or did not have academic obligations at the time data were collected. To 

be consistent with the data collection process, if the faculty member was listed and data was available, all journal 

publication and conference presentation data were collected for that faculty member.  

For organizational purposes, Microsoft Excel was utilized for database management intentions to collect all sport 

management program website listed faculty member, conference presentations, and journal publication, if any. 

All entries of conference presentation and journal publication locations by a single faculty member were collected 

and entered into this database. One conference presentation listing was considered one frequency. One journal 

publication was also considered one frequency. Once all data were collected for journals and conferences, a 0/1 

coding process determined sport related and non-sport related conferences and journals to better understand the 

fields overall domain and interdisciplinary outlook. 

3.3 Data analysis 

Content analysis was used to determine if a journal or conference had a sport or nonsport related aim and scope 

(Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). The published aim and scope of the conference website and journal website was 

analyzed in determining sport or non-sport related designation using sport and sport-related key word searches 

(e.g., athletics, physical activity, recreation, sport). A 0/1 coding process followed the content analysis phase to 

finalize sport and non-sport journals and conferences.    

Determining non-sport related journals and conferences was considered new angles of sport management 

assessment called for by previous scholars (c.f., Costa, 2005; Floyd Jones et al., 2008; Mahony et al., 2004; Pitts, 

2001; Slack, 1991, 1996) to assist in broad based growth of the academy. Once all data were collected, the Excel 

sorting function was used to itemize an alphabetical list of journal publication and conference presentation 

locations to easily view, count, and determine the total number of conferences and journals and the frequencies. 

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Similarly, Hasselback et al. (2000) used a counting methodology to calculate and analyze publication records 

from a population of 3878 accounting faculty for promotion and tenure standards within the top-40 highest rated 

accounting journals in the industry. The authors noted that while counting articles did provide “objectivity and 

simplicity” (p. 81), however, the process was not as simple as it appeared. 

4.1 Results 

The intent of the current research was to review all NASSM (United States and Canada) recognized sport 

management programs websites and the faculty available within each of these programs during the 2013-2014 

academic year. A comprehensive collection of data represented sport management faculty career characteristics 

in the areas of conference presentation locations and journal publication locations. The purpose of the current 

research was to explore the career characteristics of journal publications and conference presentations of sport 

management faculty the intention of becoming a baseline study for sport management faculty career characteristic 

research. At the time of data collection, there were 462 sport management programs represented on the NASSM 

website from the United States and 17 sport management programs in Canada bringing the total population for 

this study to 479. During the initial assessment of sport management programs in the United States, it was 

determined that 26 programs be omitted from data analysis phase of this project. Of these 26 programs, 14 

institutions were non-degree granting programs. The remaining 12 institutions were removed from analysis 

because they were strictly online sport management programs. Online programs were removed due to the 

possibility that faculty for online sport management programs may also be faculty at other institutions.    

The removal of these programs was done to increase reliability and improve the accuracy of the results, bringing 

the sample size for the current study to 453. Additionally, 67 or 13.9% of the sport management program 

population, did not have functioning links (e.g., “error 404 – page could not be found”) from the NASSM website 

to their sport management website. In this event, additional search measures took place as described in the 

methods section. 

A total of 801 sport management faculty members were identified through the links via the NASSM website. Of 

these faculty members, 612 faculty members had a Ph.D., 100 had a Masters degree, six had only a Bachelors 

degree and 83-faculty member’s level of degree earned was not found. Further analysis noted that 442-sport 

management faculty did not have at least one conference presentation or one journal publication represented on 

their profile. It should also be noted here that 141 United States sport management programs and 6 sport 

management programs from Canada had links to sport management program websites, but through the three-

stage search process, no sport management faculty representation was evident.  

A list of conference and journal frequencies is represented in Table 1. A total of 4571 conference presentation 

frequencies were represented from the sample of sport management faculty. From this total, 4028 were designated 

as sport management related conferences and 543 were non-sport management related conferences. Therefore, 

88% of the conferences being presented by the faculty population had a sport focus and 12% had a non-sport 

conference focus. This was a 7.4 to 1 faculty sport to non-sport conference presentation ratio. This suggests that 

for approximately every seven sport related conference presentations by the North American NASSM cohort; 

one non-sport related conference presentation was conducted. There were 665 different conferences represented. 

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A total of 4903 journal publications were collected. From this total, 3706 were designated as sport management 

related journal publications and 1197 were non-sport management related journal publications. Therefore, 74% 

of journal publications by the faculty population had a sport focus and 24% had a non-sport journal focus. This 

was 3.09 to 1 sport to non-sport journal publication ratio. This suggests that for every three sport related journal 

publications represented by the North American NASSM cohort only one non-sport related journal article was 

published. There were 1008 different journal publications represented. Tables 2 and 3 represent the 10 most 

frequently represented journal publications and conference presentations by the population for this research.    

Table 1: Sport management faculty conference presentation and journal publication frequency 

representation  

  

(n-801)  

  Frequency  Sport  Non-  

Sport  

Representation  Sport to  

Non-sport 

Ratio  

Percentage  

Sport/NonSport  

Conferences  4571  4028  543  665  7.4 to 1  88/12%  

Journals  4903  3706  1197  1008  3.09 to 1  76/24% Table 2: Sport journal locations 

Frequency Non-sport journal locations Frequency  

  

Journal of Sport Management   335  

   

Sex roles   33   

Sport Marketing Quarterly   247  

   

Marketing Management   

Journal   

20   

International Journal of Sport  

Management   

224  

   

Cultural Studies   

Critical Methodologies   

19   

Research Quarterly for Exercise 

and Sport   

160  

   

Journal of African Studies   15   

Sport Management Review   152  

   

Tourism Management   15   

International Journal of Sport 

Management and Marketing   

99  

   

Advances in Consumer  Research   12   

Journal of Contemporary 

Athletics   

95  

   

Journal of Applied Marketing  

Theory   

12   

Journal of Legal Aspects of 

Sport   

75  

   

Journal of Economics and  

Business   

12   

Journal of Issues in 

Intercollegiate Sport   

70  

   

Journal of Business Ethics   11   

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Applied Research in Coaching 

and Athletics Annual   

70  

   

Journal of Urban Affairs   11   

  

Table 3: Sport conference locations Frequency Non-sport conference locations  

Frequency  

  

North American Society for 

Sport Management   

1115     Western Economic Association   

  

28   

Sport Marketing Association   392     Association of Marketing  

Theory & Practice   

22   

America Alliance for Health, 

Physical Education, Recreation, 

and Dance   

392     Academy of Management   13   

College Sport Research Institute   292     Hawaii International on  

Education   

13   

North American Society for the 

Sociology of Sport   

195     Travel and Tourism Research  

Association   

13   

Sport and Recreation Law 

Association   

125     American Marketing  

Association   

12   

European Association for Sport 

Management   

96     International Congress of   

Qualitative   

Inquiry   

10   

Sport Entertainment & Venues 

Tomorrow Conference   

59     Forum on Design Management  

Research and Education   

9   

National Recreation and Park 

Association   

51     Academy of Marketing  Science   8   

International Conference on 

Sport Business and 

Entertainment   

49     National Communication  

Association   

7   

5.1 Discussion and Conclusion 

Several decades have passed since the initial call to expand the focus of what the field of sport management can 

contribute to the greater sport management industry and society. Several studies have successfully assessed areas 

of the sport management field, but less is known about direct faculty characteristics. The current research is 

evidence of several consistencies and future opportunities previous researchers such as Slack (1991, 1996), Pitts 

(2001) and others called for decades ago. However, without previous research related to sport management faculty 

profile characteristics, the current study offers baseline data that contributes to further interpretations of sport 

management assessment and adds to the existing discussion of future growth and credibility within the field.   

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While the current research is a starting point for future assessment of sport management faculty characteristics 

there is no way to gather if the current results show that faculty journal publications and conference presentations 

show added legitimacy of the sport management field as a whole. The results appeared to have that those in sport 

management academia show a high comfort level with the context of sport with arguably slight limitations toward 

an interdisciplinary approach (c.f., Doherty, 2012). This is noted with the larger sport to non-sport percentage and 

ratio toward conference presentations and journal publications. The results are not intended to present satisfactory 

progress toward growth or credibility, or present the good or the bad of the sport management academy at this 

time. Simply put, this study lays the groundwork for future sport management career characteristic profile 

research. As previous management scholars suggested, assessing the career profile characteristics may indicate a 

form of enhancing credibility and with this the academy can continue to develop future trends toward credibility, 

status (Washington & Zajac, 2005), reputation (Deephouse & Suchman, 2008), and legitimacy (Suchman, 1995).  

A tremendous amount of diversity was indicated through the data of journal publication and conference 

presentation locations accumulated. This gives indication of great effort toward an overall interdisciplinary 

research agenda (Doherty, 2012) and a broadening of the sport management domain (Slack, 1996). By these 

expanding perspectives of sport and non-sport conference presentations and journal publications, other fields such 

as political science or the technology industry (Slack, 1996) may view the sport management academy differently. 

Given the frequencies, percentages, and ratios noted in Table 1, 2, and 3, the argument can be made that the 

current sport management faculty has established a fine threshold of credibility and other fields should take notice. 

Moreover, to address the possibility of actual credibility measurement of the sport management field, qualitative 

and quantitative studies could be undertaken by requesting other disciplines (e.g., business or political science) 

to respond to their perceptions or credibility of the field. Future research could embark on a Delphi study (c.f. 

Costa, 2005) to begin to respond to these types of queries.  

There were unexpected findings worth noting. First, 147 sport management programs were recognized by the 

NASSM website, but during the three-phase search process there was no full-time sport management faculty 

found representing the program.   

While Parkhouse (1987) noted that to be a verified sport management program it must offer sufficient curriculum 

to merit a minor or concentration, Mondello et al. (2002) and Mohoney et al. (2004) suggested that qualified 

faculty with a terminal degree within this field be among the qualifications for sport management programs. Here, 

we do not know if there are qualified sports management faculty within these programs as data was not available. 

Additionally, while the author understands that faculty have different journal publication and conference 

presentation requirements, it was surprising that 801 sport management faculty were found, 442 members of this 

population did not have record of at least one conference presentation or one journal publication. This is not to 

say that this portion of the population did not present at conferences or publish their research, the data were simply 

not available through the program websites.  

The percentages and ratio results were interesting in several ways. While previous research does not show 

quantitative data on sport management career characteristics, the author expected a higher percentages and ratios 

of journal publications and conference presentations. This anticipation was based on the literature review and 

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continued calls over the years for improvements in areas such broadening the sport management domain (Slack, 

1996), theoretical framework (c.f., Doherty, 2013; Frisby, 2005), providing continued assessment in the field 

(Costa, 2005; Floyd-Jones, 2008; Mahoney et al., 2004; Parkhouse & Pitts, 2001; Weese, 2002), and 

interdisciplinary research (c.f., Doherty, 2012; Slack, 1996).  

One question that became evident to the researcher during the analysis of results phase was why were sport 

conference presentations more than double to that of sport journal publications? This could be that conference 

requirements are less stringent to that of journal publications (i.e., review process). Also, the funding support for 

attending conferences could be discipline focused suggesting funds are only available to sport management 

faculty attending sport conferences. Furthermore, once a faculty member presents at a sport conference a salami 

slice effect takes place (Pfleegor, 2014), and through collaboration with colleagues a faculty member could 

develop several publications from a conference presentation idea (or vice versa) and send those manuscripts to 

non-sport journals or conferences. 

There was a significant amount of data collected for this study; however, limitations became apparent during and 

after data collection and analysis. Profiles and curriculum vita appeared to not be regularly updated. 

Furthermore, numerous faculty members had an abbreviated curriculum vitae listed with only selected conference 

presentations and selected publications. While all career characteristic data were collected, it was probable that 

abbreviated faculty journal and conference data did in fact affect the results. The author determined that the only 

way to alleviate the concern about reliability of abbreviated data was to not be selective and collect all data 

available on all sport management program faculty web pages.  

Additional limitations came from collecting data from the NASSM website. This site is for sport management 

programs that pay a fee to NASSM to be a part of their website sport management program directory. There may 

be many more sport management programs in the United States and Canada that chose not to pay this fee.   

Other limitations arose throughout the data collection process that longitudinal data of when faculty presented 

and published their research would have been ideal. It was considered impossible to collect this longitudinal 

information, as dates did not always accompany listed conference and publication references. Along these lines, 

it would also have proven beneficial to generate a standard deviation of conference presentations and journal 

publications between represented faculty members. This aspect would have shown where (i.e., yearly journal 

publication and conference presentation progress) these accomplishments were greatest and weakest among 

faculty through a regression analysis.  

Additional limitations remain with the recent literature on sport management field assessment. While much of 

the literature review with the current research was relevant, it was quite dated and further analysis of similar 

topics should be an on-going process. Additional limitations lie with the possibility of faculty using their 

institution’s websites to manage their career profiles. Resources such as Linked-in, Research Gate, or Academia 

were not used as a part of the data collection process for this study and may be utilized by sport management 

academics and updated more often. Finally, researchers such as Slack (1996) and Doherty (2012) suggested sport 

management academics should take more of an interdisciplinary approach towards their research presentations 

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and aim for publications. It was unknown if previous faculty submissions were rejected to non-sport conferences 

and journals, but then submitted to sport journals and vice versa.  

Future research toward sport management faculty career characteristics could follow that of Smith and 

Washington (2013) where they collected athletic director detailed curriculum vita career path analysis. They 

found that athletic directors, while expected to have business experience to manage million dollar budgets, had 

minimal business experience. The current research could follow a similar line by showing sport management 

faculty career progression through academic and non-academic endeavors that may benefit the future assessment 

of faculty. Other future research implications may be important to the credibility discussion in areas of combining 

sport management career characteristics and journal prestige assessment.  

In their evaluation of sport management journals, Shilbury and Rentschler (2007) evaluated and rated 13 sport 

management journals using four criteria: (i) journal prestige and contributions to the following areas (ii) theory, 

(iii) practice, and (iv) teaching. Calling upon 45 senior sport management academics to use these criteria to 

evaluate these journals with the Journal of Sport Management, Sport Management Review and the Sociology of 

Sport Journal receiving an ‘A’ letter grade. Future research could use the current study’s existing data from Table 

2 and 3 and cross-reference it with Shilbury and Rentschler’s (2007) work to not only add to the credibility 

conversation, but also discuss the field’s legitimacy and status with other fields. Further expansions of this study 

could focus on the research interests of sport management faculty to further understand the possibilities of 

expansion into multiple disciplines. Additionally, a North American comparison over the rest of the world (i.e., 

Asia, Europe, and Australia) may also prove beneficial toward further assessment. 

As the field of sport management moves forward with the understanding that growth and credibility is in the mind 

of the receiver, several questions must continually be asked. For instance, is building credibility, legitimacy, and 

status important for the growth of the field? Is improvement in these areas necessary for the sport management 

field itself, or is it more selfserving (c.f., Boucher, 1998)? Either way, a shared and conscious effort should 

continue to take place through personal accountability (e.g., updating faculty profiles) and organizational 

accountability (e.g., continuing to promote interdisciplinary research and continued assessment). The field of 

sport management has seen tremendous growth over the years, primarily through the growth of its programs 

offered around the world. Additional areas of growth may come in the form of faculty as well as the increasing 

amount of sport management journals available (NASSM, 2014) with more growth on the way. Accomplishments 

among NASSM members are plentiful.  

Continuing to assess and build upon the field’s infrastructure will certainly aid in enhancing the sport management 

field perspectives amongst peers both inside and outside of the academy. 

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