Joe Feldman

Joseph "Joe" Feldman
Noted subjects	History, Geography, Current Events, Tournament Directing
Current college	Suffolk County Community College (2021-2022)
Past colleges	Stony Brook (Intermittently 2016-2019); Adelphi (2016)
High school	Smithtown West (2012-2016)
Middle school	Great Hollow (2009-2012)
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Joe Feldman is the President of the Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance and the founder and past President of the American Quizbowl League. He had a four-year high school playing career for Smithtown West from 2012 to 2016, and played for Stony Brook intermittently from 2016 to 2019, but dropped out repeatedly and never played a collegiate event under their banner. He enrolled in Suffolk County Community College in 2021 and took 4th at the 2022 CCCT.

After a few years of playing a Knowledge Master Open-esque tournament by Great Auk and Geography Bees in Middle School, winning the school championship each year in each event, and a somewhat successful high school career, where he tried and failed for four years to put West "On the Map", Joe began directing tournaments; after the first was a failure, he took a hiatus and enrolled in Stony Brook. Over the next three years, he dropped out and re-enrolled repeatedly, before dropping out for a final time in 2019. He then founded the Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance to host the Island Cup; the tournaments were roundly mocked and were a financial disaster. In March 2020, the LIQBA shifted to online tournaments, and after a string of successful events, he founded the American Quizbowl League in June 2020 before selling the company. He then restarted the LIQBA to great success, and has branched out to in-person events all over the New York tri-state.

One of the most polarizing figures in Quizbowl, Joe has been the subject of intense controversy for his entire career as a tournament director. During his time directing online tournaments, he oversaw multiple cheating scandals, was the subject of numerous boycotts, and was accused of profiteering, monopolistic behavior, and underpaying staff; these concerns have abated since the return to in-person tournaments and large increases in staff payments. The AQBL launched to the chagrin of the entire Quizbowl community and was roundly mocked. He drew intense controversy for cutting a politics-related tossup he felt was biased and flouting mask rules at an event he directed in October 2021, which resulted in a failed attempt to oust him from Quizbowl. On the contrary, he is somewhat admired for the LIQBA's and AQBL's extremely successful outreach efforts, for hosting the majority of Quizbowl tournaments during the pandemic, staving off the folding of dozens of teams, for keeping Good Quizbowl alive on Long Island, and for helping lead the return to in-person events in 2021. With a single exception, his tournaments have drawn overwhelmingly positive responses and accolades from those in attendance, and he stands among the best and most prolific tournament directors in Quizbowl.

The consummate "Quizbowl Capitalist", Joe is known by many nicknames, including "Buttery Joe", "'THE' Joe", and "Quizbowl's Happy Warrior", among others. He has drawn many unfavorable comparisons to John D. Rockefeller, jokingly compares himself to C. Montgomery Burns, and, while he ran online tournaments, had long-running corporate rivalries with Groger Ranks and the Texas Quizbowl Alliance. He is one of the few Quizbowlers to have played on questions from Questions Unlimited, Academic Hallmarks, Avery Enterprises, Questions Galore, NAQT, SCOP, and Housewrites during his high school career. Luckily for all of us, he preferred the latter three.