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The purpose of this paper is to identify the historical factors that influenced the design and construction of modern National Hockey League and National Basketball Association arenas between 1990 and 2018. Additionally, this paper seeks to index the characteristics of those modern arenas while forwarding reasonable, informed propositions for future multipurpose arena design.

The historical methodology was applied to the design and construction of modern multipurpose arenas between 1990 and 2018. Modernization theory was utilized as an organizing construct to understand the intentional managerial actions to capitalize on consumer expectations by responding to economic and technological changes.

Sport managers responded to decreased median family incomes during the period of the study by building arenas with increasingly commodified spaces and amenities targeting wealthy and corporate customers. New technologies were adopted within facilities to meet the needs and expectations of in-venue and remote consumers.

In addition to demonstrating the practical utility of modernization theory and applied history for sport management scholars and practitioners, particularly in the Western context, the present study provides a series of propositions for future sport managers to consider to maintain or establish institutional advantage in the arena marketplace.

The paper contributes to the sport management literature by demonstrating the utility of modernization theory and applied history for sport management. In examining the design history of modern multipurpose arenas, the paper identifies the characteristics of modern multipurpose arenas while demonstrating the importance of understanding context and intentionality in managerial decision making.

This study aims to use a theoretical-based case study of two distinct ownership groups of the Jack Daniel’s brand to explore how rhetorical history (i.e. malleability of the past for strategic goals) may evoke and capitalize on different forms of nostalgia. Within, the authors configure four forms of nostalgia (i.e. personal, historical, collective and cultural) from the individual or collective interaction and level of direct experience one has with the past as lived or happened.

This study uses an historical research approach which involved the identification of primary and secondary sources, facility tour, source criticism and triangulation to create themes of rhetorical history infused with nostalgic narratives using compelling evidence through rich description of this fusion.

The findings reveal how nostalgia-driven narratives reflecting different collective longing for the re-creation of an American Paradise Lost used by Jack Daniel (i.e. the man) and later but differently by Brown-Forman. This study uncovers how the company’s inherited past was used rhetorically throughout its history, beginning with the nostalgic story of Jack Daniel and the distillery’s nostalgically choreographed location in Lynchburg, Tennessee. This study delves into this setting to highlight the importance of symbols, details, emotional appeals and communications for collective memory and identity development and to showcase the ways in which they are influenced by different types and forms of nostalgia.

This study adds to a limited number of studies focused on understanding the impact of founders on an organization’s brand and how that is malleable. This study responds to scholarly calls to study the influence of sequenced historical rhetoric on an organization and highlight the relevance of social emotions such as nostalgia for rhetorical history. Finally, the theoretical contribution involves the advancing and construction of a theory typology of nostalgia previously proposed by Havlena and Holak in 1996.

The aim of this paper is to explore the development of the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) and to map the foundation that specific individuals, historical works, and historians provided the founders of that organization and the field of sport management in general. The paper also aims to track the early beginnings of sport management and present sport as a viable area for business and management historians to conduct their research and discuss theory.

Following the initial work started by deWilde et al., this study drew on a wide range of primary and secondary sources and took an antiquarian and reconstructionist approach. Specifically, time-specific sport-related/focused dissertations, research articles, and archives from NASSM, along with published books and archives, were used to work toward the purpose of the study.

This paper illustrates that some of the critical founding members of sport management and NASSM drew upon the training of historians, with special emphasis from business history, and reacted to specific prompts to create the field (i.e. sport management). “History” and trained historians directly impacted the field of sport management by helping to establish NASSM, the Journal of Sport Management, and graduate study programs, in addition to fashioning the first field accreditation standards and seminal textbooks needed to educate the generalist or specialist sport management student.

This research only tracks the beginnings of sport management and focuses on the contribution of “history” toward its development. This work recognizes there were other influences that were critical to the development of sport management.

Over time, sport management scholars have moved away from their small historical base and more toward true quantitative preferences. While this has helped the field gain some respectability within contemporary preferences, the re-utilization of historical methods and/or perspectives can help serve the future of sport management and business/management history research toward the study of emerging topics. Through collaboration sport management's leadership can realize the potential of the historical approach/orientation and management historians can enjoy another outlet to communicate their thoughts regarding management topics and theories.

The paper highlights that sport is rich in context and available to use for the study of management theory and behaviors.