A new decade begins and it is amazing how much has been achieved in the past ten years. Let me reflect on what sports marketing looked like in 2000. Journals, agencies, practitioners, lectures and degrees... so much has evolved. Sports marketing must now be viewed from a global perspective, and the Journal reflects this evolution. The variety of academic papers published demonstrates how the discipline has spread – for example, we have been accepting papers from Asia for years now.

When I took over responsibility for the Journal last year, following Simon Chadwick’s editorship, I underlined the need for still more variety. In this issue we publish Fawzi Dekhil’s paper on sponsorship recall at the African Cup of Nations. This is the first paper from Africa that this Journal has published and is particularly symbolic given that terrible issues surrounding the events in Angola and South African preparations to host its first FIFA World Cup this year will only increase attention on this region. The promotion and sponsorship of these events have the potential to highlight new practices and strategies towards the marketing management of sport.

This opening up of the Journal, and more generally the whole discipline of sports marketing, to the world beyond North America and Europe is now indisputable. As the editor, I now receive weekly submissions from China, India, Bangladesh, Iran, Korea and the United Arab Emirates, bringing a variety of new topics and theoretical standpoints to our discipline.

The challenges for the sports industry in this new decade are truly global. Similarly, the marketing and sponsorship of sports properties and their associated brands are facing issues, at least at the elite end, of a kind not seen for a number of years. The recent news in Europe that the 2010 Ryder Cup is having difficulty selling its corporate hospitality packages and the reluctance of the Indian Premier League franchises to acquire players for the 2010 competition emphasise the tightening of budgets. The question should be asked: what can a field as innovative as the marketing and sponsorship of sport contribute in these difficult times?

In this regard the diversity of article origins, subjects, methodologies and presentation, along with high standards of writing, is what a serious and well established academic publication needs, so we can be proud of the Journal’s evolution. However, we also continue to involve and attract the practitioner community, through our readership and our editorial board. This gives us an important balance of information for our academic research. The Journal has published excellent interviews and case studies and these offer a different and valuable perspective on the industry. We call on academics and practitioners to work together to create case studies to showcase good practice and also provide an outlet for those studying in the classroom to engage with current praxis. For 2010 we aim to continue this balance and encourage submissions from a broad base of commercial and academic authors and contributors.

Professor Michel Desbordes

Editor