Guest Editors
- John N. Singer, Texas A&M University
- Joseph N. Cooper, University of Massachusetts Boston
- Jonathan E. Howe, Temple University
The call for sport management scholars to explicitly center race and racism in sport management research began over 20 years ago with a seminal paper on epistemological racism in the Journal of Sport Management (JSM) by John Singer (2005). Since Singer’s (2005) contribution and Armstrong’s (2011) special issue in JSM on scholarly explorations of how race and ethnicity impact sport management, recent publications in JSM (e.g., Macaulay et al., 2025; Singer et al., 2022; Vadeboncoeur et al., 2021) and other prominent outlets in our field have focused on how racism is theorized and influential in sport management research. Specifically, the theoretical perspectives in these papers help illuminate how race and racism shape critical management functions including leadership development, organizational culture, strategic decision-making, human resource practices, consumer behavior, and stakeholder engagement, among others. By centering race, racism, and anti-racism in sport management research, scholars can better understand how organizational policies and practices help perpetuate or potentially reduce racial inequities within sport organizations, and how these dynamics affect organizational effectiveness and outcomes. In this Special Issue, we aim to highlight salient issues related to race, racism and anti-racism, and their intersections with other socially constructed identities and systems of oppression that scholars might better understand and address by drawing from historical and contemporary theoretical frameworks to help guide this important work.
Contributions to this Special Issue will help further define and establish relevant theory and analytic frameworks that guide the explicit acknowledgement and study of race, racism, and anti-racism within the field of sport management. Through the exploration of these concepts, we challenge authors who submit to the Special Issue to heed to Wendy Frisby’s (2005) call for more critical social science (CSS) organizational research in the field and consider theories on race, racism, and related critical paradigms/frameworks (e.g., critical race theory (CRT) and its various extensions) alongside management theories that help us understand organizational decision-making, leadership, development, and strategic choice and where race, racism, and anti-racism are infused in these practices. Building more specifically from Singer’s (2005) original call for more critical, race-based research paradigms/frameworks (particularly CRT) and Macaulay et al.’s (2025) more recent integration of critical institutionalism, we see the timely opportunity within sport management (e.g., institutional theory, critical management studies, social exchange theory, social identity theory, signaling theory, human capital theory, organizational culture theory, stakeholder theory, etc.) to move the field forward in meaningful ways.
Engaging this integration of theory, potential contributions might examine how race, racism, and/or anti-racism operate within:
- Organizational hiring, promotion, and succession planning
- Leadership development and evaluation practices
- Strategic planning and resource allocation decisions
- Marketing strategies and consumer engagement
- Governance structures and policy formation
- Workplace culture and climate initiatives
- Stakeholder relations (intra-nationally and internationally) and community engagement
- Performance evaluation and accountability systems
- Event management and operations
- Technological advancements and applications (e.g., analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), etc.)
To ensure alignment with the mission of JSM, manuscripts submitted to this Special Issue should be grounded in CSS and management theories and practice throughout their conceptualization, analysis, and discussion of sport management, sport governance or the consumption of sport. We strongly encourage scholars to consider how critical, race-based theories are not separate, but an important, yet often precluded, part of the discourse surrounding the management, governance, and consumption of sport.
Submission Guidelines
Manuscripts should follow American Psychological Association (www.apa.org) publication formatting and should be prepared in accordance with the Journal of Sport Management “Author Guidelines.” Manuscripts must not have been previously published and must not be submitted to another journal while under review at the Journal of Sport Management.
Manuscripts should be submitted no later than September 30, 2026, using ScholarOne on the Journal of Sport Management website. Authors should indicate in their cover letter that the submission is to be considered for the special issue on “Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism in and through Sport Management Research”.
Please note: When submitting your manuscript, please ensure to select the “Special Issue” option within the ScholarOne system.
Each author is allowed to submit up to two manuscripts for this Special Issue, ensuring broader participation and diverse contributions. Editorial team members are limited to one submission, in addition to their authorship of the Special Issue introduction.
Contact Information for Guest Editors
John N. Singer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management
College of Education and Human Development
Associate Director, Race and Ethnic Studies Institute (RESI)
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
singerjn@tamu.edu
Joseph N. Cooper, Ph.D.
Professor
Dr. J. Keith Motley Endowed Chair of Sport Leadership and Administration
Founding Executive Director of the Institute for Innovative Leadership in Sport (I2LS)
Department of Counseling, School Psychology, and Sport
College of Education and Human Development
University of Massachusetts
Boston, MA
josephn.cooper@umb.edu
Jonathan E. Howe, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Co-Director; Athletic, Innovation, Research, and Education Laboratory
School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA
jhowe@temple.edu
