The Centre for the Law and Economics of Sport [Centre de Droit et d’Economie du Sport – CDES] has, since the middle of the 1990s, been organising national, and later international, meetings which bring together doctoral candidates and teachers working in the field of sport. That was how the European Seminars for Doctoral Students in the Law, Economics and Management of Sport were started, in Limoges in July 1996 and July 1998. Faced with the interest which this type of meeting aroused, economists at the CDES launched the first international summer school for sports economists on 1st-2nd July 1999 in Limoges, which brought together 22 participants.
The days were organised around three issues: to take stock of sports economics in the different countries represented; to discuss professional sport; and to found an international association. After many rewarding exchanges relating to comparing the organisational models in Europe and in the U.S.A., to analysing the labour market in professional sport, to financing professional sport and to the new role of the media, the meetings ended by setting up of the International Association of Sports Economists (I.A.S.E.).
Since that date, the Association has diversified its activities:
- organising an annual Conference: Lisbon (2000); Malaga (2001); New York (2002); Neuchâtel (2003); and Athens (2004);
- publishing a newsletter;
- collaborating with the Journal of Sport Economics,
- circulating information amongst members’
- members of the Association participating in joint publications;
- and opening a website.
