How the Sports Business Journal got its start

Abe Madkour, the publisher and executive editor of the Sports Business Journal, writes about how the publication got its start 30 years ago.

Madkour writes, “A few days later, I received an offer and joined the small team, and about a month later, on Sept. 12, 1994, the first issue of The Daily was sent to a handful of clients. After publishing, we all stood around, anxiously waiting for any reaction about what we had produced. There were a couple of ‘can you make this stop jamming my fax machine?’ comments. But I more vividly remember Pollack coming out of his office, smiling and saying, ‘I just got a call from a baseball team owner. They said, ‘I love this thing. But there is no chance you’ll be able to publish this again tomorrow.’” Pollack’s response: ‘Watch us.’ Bilafer looked at our small edit team, and with his mischievous grin said, ‘Let’s do it again tomorrow, gang.’ We did, and what a ride it’s been.

“Purchased by American City Business Journals in 1998 and fully integrated with Sports Business Journal thereafter, our staff this week will celebrate 30 years of publishing the daily executive news briefing. There are a few people who truly don’t get the credit they deserve for the success and impact this product has had. It all starts with Pollack, who had the vision and the guts at 28 years old to launch it, as he always stressed there should be a daily trade publication for the sports industry like Variety was for Hollywood. Then there was Bilafer, who understood media and current event issues like no one I’ve ever seen and had uncanny smarts and news sensibilities.

“Four years after launching, The Daily needed new ownership and investment, and American City Business Journals founder Ray Shaw and his son, Whitney Shaw, flew up from Charlotte to visit our offices in South Norwalk, Conn. The two looked amusingly at a young staff dressed in T-shirts and shorts, and openly discussed their plan to relocate operations to Charlotte and link the daily product with their new weekly magazine, SportsBusiness Journal, which they were launching that spring. It was an incredible stroke of foresight and timing, as the Shaw family came at just the right time to purchase The Daily when the business truly needed it. They saw the value of the daily news aggregated briefing eventually being a part of SBJ’s weekly original coverage, and The Daily became much more stable and credible under American City Business Journals. The Shaw family invested so much of its time, energy and resources into making a difference to an entire industry.”