Today, April 18, 2016, is the International Day for Monuments and Sites, and the theme for this year is the “Heritage of Sport.”

Clearly, the heritage of sport is important to many nations, communities, and people, though it has only been in recent years that there has been significant attention paid to this topic – particularly in the academic community. There are, of course, numerous examples of sporting sites and venues that are recognized as heritage – from the ancient to the more modern – and sporting artefacts are often the focus of many collections and museums.

This forum, as well as the research is disseminates, notes that the heritage of sport goes far beyond the tangible and also encompasses cultures, rituals, traditions and memories associated with the sporting past. Similarly, sport heritage is also strongly connected to tourism and economic development, authenticity and commodification, and social cohesion and dissonance.

We welcome the recognition of the heritage of sport as an important aspect of global heritage, and encourage the further investigation of this topic by academics and practitioners alike.