Brenda G Pitts

Brenda G. Pitts is an internationally renowned name in sport business management, particularly in sport marketing and in sport management program development. She is currently professor of sport management, director of the Dr. R. Cooter Sport Business Research Center, and program director at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Dr. Pitts has also served as a consultant in sport marketing for various sport businesses, including the Georgia Dome in Atlanta (with clients such as the Professional Bull Riders, Inc., SuperCross, and the Atlanta Falcons), Tallahassee Soccer Association, and the NCAA.  

In research, Dr. Pitts is distinguished as a Dr. Earle F. Zeigler Scholar and one of the first research fellows of the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM), where in 2004 she received the Dr. Garth Paton Distinguished Service Award in recognition of meritorious service. She is author/coauthor of six sport marketing textbooks, editor of and a contibuting author in three Sport Marketing Association's books of papers, and author of numerous publications and presentations. Her work has been published in several scholarly journals such as the Sport Management Education Journal, Journal of Sport Management, Sport Marketing Quarterly, Journal of Vacation Marketing, International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship, Women in Sport and Physical Activity, Sport Management and Related Topics Journal, and the International Journal of Sport Management.

Dr. Pitts was an editorial board member (1991-1998) and later co-editor-in-chief of The Sport Management Library (1998-2000), a project that produced more than 20 textbooks in sport management. She serves on the review boards of the Sport Marketing Quarterly, the Sport Management and Related Topics Journal, and the Sport Management Review (Australia); she previously served on the review board of the International Journal of Sport Management. She has served as a guest editor for papers for the Journal of Sport Management and the Women in Sport and Physical Activity Journal.

Dr. Pitts enjoys all kinds of sports, more recently soccer, golf, boating, volleyball, jogging, tennis, and softball. Her outstanding career in basketball has brought her such awards as the retirement of her high school basketball uniform number; membership in the Club of the University of Alabama; induction into the Huntsville (Alabama) Sports Hall of Fame; induction into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, Knoxville, Tennessee; and a nomination for the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Recently, Dr. Pitts has won a couple of golf tournaments, but has wisely decided to keep her day job.