Joe Feldman

Joe Feldman
Noted subjects	History, Geography, Current Events, Tournament Directing
Current college	None
Past colleges	Suffolk CCC (2021-2022)
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. He later enrolled in Suffolk County Community College in 2021 and took 4th at the 2022 CCCT, but dropped out before graduating.

His career began by playing three National Geographic Bees and one ASAL Scholastic Challenge in Middle School, taking home the school championship in every event he played, and making his way to 11th in New York in his 8th grade geo bee. He went to West for high school and joined the Quizbowl team, which often struggled until his Junior year, when the team became a local powerhouse. After graduation, Joe began directing tournaments. The first, SWISS, ran hours late. After taking a hiatus, he founded the Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance to host the Island Cup; the tournaments were well-regarded, but mocked online for their small field sizes. In March 2020, the LIQBA shifted to online tournaments, and Joe separately founded the American Quizbowl League in June 2020, leaving the LIQBA idle, before selling the company to Nick Pruitt in October. Joe returned the LIQBA to activity in May 2021, and grew it into a massive Quizbowl enterprise; he arranged for the buyout of Questions Unlimited in 2024.

Joe is one of the most polarizing figures in Quizbowl, and often finds himself embroiled in controversy, sometimes of his own making. He has detractors and defenders of equal ardentness; he tends to be most reviled by the Collegiate quizbowl community, particularly online, and most admired by the High School community, particularly in the Northeast, though many exceptions exist.

Joe is also known for having an atypical background compared to most Quizbowlers, having spent his early 20s in the trades; he was an electrician's apprentice and often worked in construction, which he now does for fun during the summer. He gained the nickname of "THE" Joe in middle school, as there were two people named Joe Feldman in his class. He has attracted many other nicknames and comparisons over the years, most of which are forgotten or obscure. His general opinions on what quizbowl "ought to be", which are usually strongly held, tend to be very different from the community consensus, and his jocular, laid-back personality is either loved or hated, and nothing in between; it has been compared to both Rodney Dangerfield and a stereotypical used car salesman. He speaks with a comically thick New York accent, and is often seen in a double-breasted pinstripe suit at tournaments.

While those who work with him regard him as relaxed, he is unusually brutal in business competition. In the AQBL days, he had rivalries with Groger Ranks and the Texas Quizbowl Alliance; had a long-running dispute with PACE; and now has a bitter rivalry with NAQT.

During his Quizbowl career, he competed on questions from a particularly large number of vendors: Questions Unlimited, Academic Hallmarks, Avery Enterprises, Questions Galore, NAQT, SCOP, and various housewrites. In the end, he was drawn to NAQT's style, and considers the first tournament he played with NAQT questions, in November 2015, to be one of the most formative moments of his Quizbowl career; aside from the LIQBA's house style, NAQT's is still his favorite by far.

He also has a Corgi named Tony, who is the LIQBA mascot and is often seen running around greeting people at events, and both Tony and Joe share a particular fondness for cheese of all kinds, which has become a running gag.