From the professionalization of the olympics to the outsize influence of companies like IMG, Nike, and ESPN, this fascinating book details the wild evolution of sports into the extravaganza we experience today, and the inevitable trade-offs those changes have wrought. Roger staubach, for example, made only $25, 000 in his first season as the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and wound up selling commercial real estate during the summer.

In players, veteran wall street journal sports reporter Matthew Futterman introduces a wide-ranging cast of characters to tell the story of the athletes, agents, TV executives, and league officials who together created the dominating and multifaceted sports industry we know today. Today, when fortune reports that every athlete on its Top 50 list makes more than twenty million dollar per year, it’s clear that a complete reversal of power has occurred right before our eyes.

It started in 1960, when a young cleveland lawyer named Mark McCormack convinced a young golfer named Arnold Palmer to sign with him. Mccormack simply believed that the best athletes had more commercial value than they realized—and he was right. Beginning with palmer and mccormack’s historic partnership, players features details of the landmark moments of sports that have never been revealed before, including how legendary Wide World of Sports producer Roone Arledge realized that the way to win viewers was to blend sports and human drama; the 1973 Wimbledon boycott, when eighty-one of the top tennis players in the world protested the suspension of Nikola Pilic; and baseball pitcher Catfish Hunter’s battle to become MLB’s first free agent.

Players is the first book to tell the astonishing narrative behind the creation of the modern sports business—a true revolution that moved athletes from the bottom of the financial pyramid to the top. Before long, he raised palmer’s annual off-the-course income from $5, 000 to $500, 000 and forever changed the landscape of the sports world.

The Economics of Sports The Pearson Series in Economics

For undergraduate courses in sports economics, this book introduces core economic concepts developed through examples from the sports industry. The economics of sports explores economic concepts and theory of industrial organization, public finance, and labor economics in the context of applications and examples from American and international sports.

The sports industry provides a seemingly endless set of examples from every area of microeconomics, giving students the opportunity to study economics in a context that holds their interest.

The Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball

Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. But what you see on the field is only half the game. In this fascinating, colorful chronicle—based on hundreds of interviews and years of research and digging—John Helyar brings to vivid life the extraordinary people and dramatic events that shaped America's favorite pastime, from the dead-ball days at the turn of the century through the great strike of 1994.

Reads like a suspense novel. Kirkus reviews"Refreshingly hard-headed. Edifying. The washington post isbn13: 9780345465245. Condition: New. Bartlett giamatti, locking horns with Pete Rose during his gambling days of summer; and much more. Praise for the lords of the Realm"A must-read for baseball fans. The ultimate chronicle of the games behind the game.

The new york times book reviewBaseball has always inspired rhapsodic elegies on the glory of man and golden memories of wonderful times. The only book you'll need to read on the subject. Newsday"Lots of stories.

Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup

He now takes aim at the outrageous fifa scandal, Boston’s bid for the 2024 summer Olympics, and the criticism surrounding the 2015 Women's World Cup. Circus maximus focuses on major cities like london and Barcelona that have previously hosted these sporting events to provide context for cities like Tokyo and Rio de Janerio, which are currently bearing the weight of exploding expenses, corruption, and protests.

Buy with confidence! Millions of books sold! Condition: New. Isbn13: 9780345465245. Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Author andrew zimbalist looks beyond the headlines of two of the world’s most beloved sporting events: the Olympics and the World Cup.

In the expanded and updated edition of his bestselling book, Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, Zimbalist tackles the bogus claim that the cities chosen to host these high-profile sporting events experience an economic windfall. Zimbalist offers a sobering look at the Olympics and the World Cup outside of the echo chamber.

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Every Town Is a Sports Town: Business Leadership at ESPN, from the Mailroom to the Boardroom

It may be hard to believe, but not long ago, getting sports updates was difficult and frustrating. Condition: New. This is a book for business readers and sports fans alike. Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. But as espn grew, so did George's status in the company. George Bodenheimer knows.

Buy with confidence! Millions of books sold! Phillips--bodenheimer lays out ESPN's meteoric rise. Espn changed everything. Isbn13: 9780345465245. In fact, bodenheimer played a major part in making ESPN a daily presence not just here, but all over the world. In this business leadership memoir--written with bestselling author Donald T.

A best business book of 2015, strategy business espN's rise is one of the most remarkable stories about business and sports in our time, and nobody can tell it better than George Bodenheimer. Tracking provided on most orders. Initially hired to work in the mailroom, one of bodenheimer's first jobs was to pick up sportscaster Dick Vitale at the Hartford airport and drive him to ESPN's main campus--a couple of trailers in a dirt parking lot.

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The Sports Event Management and Marketing Playbook

Condition: New. Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. Buy with confidence! Millions of books sold! . Tracking provided on most orders. Used book in Good Condition. As a sporting event planner, how do you keep up with the trends of the ticket buying public, sponsorship and merchandising while at the same time attending to the hundreds of management and operational details required to execute the event? A successful sports event requires a planner that can read signals from their market and plan strategically to maintain sponsors and a fill an arena.

Isbn13: 9780345465245.

America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation

Condition: New. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America’s favorite sport. Buy with confidence! Millions of books sold! It’s difficult to imagine today—when the super bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country’s dominant sports entity—but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape.

In the span of a single generation in postwar america, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colossus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age. America’s game traces pro football’s grand transformation, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport’s present-day preeminence.

Tracking provided on most orders. Used book in Good Condition. Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. Isbn13: 9780345465245.

The Fifty-Year Seduction: How Television Manipulated College Football, from the Birth of the Modern NCAA to the Creation of the BCS

For more than a half century, television has played a primary role in securing college football's place as one of America's most popular spectator sports. Condition: New. Through the years, and envy; altered the recruiting process, greed, dependence, the medium manufactured money, eventually forcing the colleges to compete with the irresistible force of National Football League riches; aided the National Collegiate Athletic Association's explosion from impotent union to massive bureaucracy; manipulated the rise and fall of the College Football Association; fomented the realignment of conferences; and seized control of the post-season bowl games, including the formation of the lucrative and controversial Bowl Championship Series.

In the fifty-year seduction, Keith Dunnavant shows how television helped shape the modern sport-on and off the field. In painstaking detail, from the 1951 television dispute that empowered the modern NCAA to the inevitable backlash, the author chronicles five decades of tension and conflict, culminating with the landmark Supreme Court decision that set the stage for the conference-swapping machinations of the 1990s and beyond.

Buy with confidence! Millions of books sold! Isbn13: 9780345465245. Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Used book in Good Condition. Television, which multiplied the number of people who cared about the game, simultaneously increased the stakes.

Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the Dawn of Martial Arts in America

Condition: New. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with confidence! Millions of books sold! Used book in Good Condition. In the spring of 1959, the city of his birth, eighteen-year-old Bruce Lee returned to San Francisco, and quickly inserted himself into the West Coast’s fledgling martial arts culture.

Drawing on more than one hundred original interviews and an eclectic array of sources, Striking Distance is an engrossing narrative chronicling San Francisco Bay’s pioneering martial arts scene as it thrived in the early 1960s and offers an in-depth look at a widely unknown chapter of Bruce Lee’s iconic life.

It would be a challenging and eventful year for Bruce. Isbn13: 9780345465245. University of Nebraska Press. He would broadcast his dissenting view before the first great international martial arts gathering and then defend it by facing down Chinatown’s young ace kung fu practitioner in a legendary behind-closed-doors high noon–style showdown.

Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. Regarded by some as a brash loudmouth and by others as a dynamic visionary, Bruce spent his first few years back in America advocating a more modern approach to the martial arts and showing little regard for the damaged egos left in his wake.

In the chinese calendar, 1964 was the Year of the Green Dragon. The year of the green dragon saw the dawn of martial arts in America and the rise of an icon.

America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation

Along the way we meet the sport’s legendary architects, tex schramm, joe namath, vince lombardi, al davis, Bert Bell, men such as Pete Rozelle, and Lamar Hunt, Bill Walsh, as well as a wide range of its memorable characters–including Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown, George “Papa Bear” Halas, Paul Brown, and Deion Sanders.

The unique portrait of the modern game’s inner workings and relentless competitiveness sheds light on contemporary stars such as Ray Lewis and Peyton Manning, as well as on the men whose leadership skills are scrutinized and second-guessed by much of the country, Tony Dungy, Dick Vermeil, celebrated coaches such as Bill Parcells, and Brian Billick.

Magisterial and sweeping, definitive and unprecedented in scope, America’s Game is cultural history at its finest. Used book in Good Condition. Buy with confidence! Millions of books sold! Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. It’s difficult to imagine today–when the super bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country’s dominant sports entity–but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape.

Pro football’s ascent is an epic American story, and America’s Game does it full justice. Beginning with the world war ii years, chiefs, cowboys, michael maccambridge traces the game’s grand transformation, Browns, Colts, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, with particular attention paid to six key franchises–the Rams, and Raiders–and how their fortunes reflected the larger growth of the game itself.

A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from playing field to press box, from locker room to boardroom, it is a unique lens through which to view the past sixty years of American history.

Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA

Disgusted by how the ncaa treated athletes, Vaccaro used his intimate knowledge of its secrets to blow the whistle in a major legal case. Ed o’bannon, the former ucla basketball star who realized, years after leaving college, that the NCAA was profiting from a video game using his image. Millions of teenagers accept scholarships to chase their dreams of fame and fortune—at the price of absolute submission to the whims of an organization that puts their interests dead last.

For about 5 percent of top-division players, college ends with a golden ticket to the NFL or the NBA. His lawsuit led to an unprecedented antitrust ruling. Ramogi huma, the founder of the national College Players Association, who dared to think that college players should have the same collective bargaining rights as other Americans.

Andy schwarz, the controversial economist who looked behind the façade of the NCAA and saw it for what it is: a cartel that violates our core values of free enterprise. Indentured reveals how these and other renegades, working sometimes in concert and sometimes alone, are fighting for justice in the bare-knuckles world of college sports.

Used book in Good Condition. The ones who will neither graduate nor go pro. Everyone except those who give their blood and sweat to entertain the fans.