The stories you're about to read examine how power manifests itself in the sports world. To ensure that we brought a full range of expertise to bear, we combined this publication's business insights with the encyclopedic sports knowledge of the writers and editors at ESPN The Magazine. Some of the stories, including this essay, were collaborations between ESPN and BusinessWeek writers.
BusinessWeek also undertook a major project to rank the 100 most powerful people in sports. (ESPN The Magazine, a strong sports brand in its own right, did not participate in the ranking.) To figure out who should be on the list and in which position, BusinessWeek assembled a panel of 20 seers from sports and media. We gave our panelists several criteria. Among them: how individuals rate vs. their peers; how much money they control, generate, or influence; how long they have exercised power; and how lasting their impact on a sport or the larger world of sports will be. For additional help, we turned to you. In four weeks, 160,000 fans stormed BusinessWeek.com to nominate their favorite power brokers.
No ranking is perfect, of course. And we expect—and encourage—readers to debate the final BusinessWeek Power 100. We also wrote about a dozen contenders who perhaps should have made the list or who are relative unknowns but influential all the same.
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