![Hard Ball [Hardcover]]( http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EIy20HB2L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg "Hard Ball [Hardcover]")
As essential as it really is depressing, Hard Ball takes a serious examine how professional sports in America has fans and communities in a very vise grip. Salaries are beyond control. Labor disputes and contract renegotiations are reported next for the standings. Corporate boxes and sponsorships determine the fate of stadiums. Owners hold cities hostage. Within an arena by which teams are obsessive about profits over championships, bottom lines over win-loss records, and market bases over fan loyalties, the games themselves are really secondary, at best.
A pair of economists, Quirk and Fort explore the methods the major sports--baseball, football, basketball, and hockey--have changed the way they actually do business in the last half from the Twentieth century as the total amount of financial power has shifted overwhelmingly on the individual league monopolies: "... the marketplace power of leagues enables these to capture the truly great bulk from the monopoly profits ... from gate receipts, media income, sweetheart stadium deals and rental arrangements, as well as other sources. These monopoly profits consequently end up being the prize package over which owners and players, that are backed by their player unions, fight." In every other industry, the authors contend, these monopolies would have long ago been banged around by Congress, and, indeed, they argue quite forcefully for breakups. Neither their diagnosis of disease nor their prescription for cure are new. Still, the thing that makes Hard Ball sadly necessary is the place clearly and completely Quirk and Fort make their case that, for the good of sports, something's gotta give. --Jeff Silverman
In their book, Hard Ball, James Quirk and Rodney Fort take the sports industry to task which has a well-conceived and clearly rendered brief about the economics behind professional sports. The authors make usage of a methodical but vigorous approach to look at the groups--the media, unions, players, owners, leagues and native politicians--that make in the pro-sports complex. . . . In the end, the authors blame all of pro sports' ills--from player salaries to TV contracts to sweetheart stadium deals--on monopoly. And their solution can be a radical one: Like a set of trust-busting Teddy Roosevelts, the authors would contain the Department of Justice ride to the fray and carve up each with the leagues into 3 or 4 separate entities.
(Jonathan V. Last Washington Times )
A significant contribution . . . The authors also supply a fascinating glimpse in the good reputation for sports revenue issues . . . a readable, even chatty, dissection of our games from the valuable reason for view.
(Paul Chapin Elysian Fields Quarterly )
An interesting look in the arena of professional athletics. . . . [A] fresh perspective with an industry increasingly scrutinized and under fire.
(Lane Hartill The Christian Science Monitor )
A gem of clear analysis and argument. . . . [E]ssential reading for everyone.
(Katherine A. Powers The Boston Globe )
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![The Complete Idiot's Guide to Football (2nd Edition) [Paperback]]( http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HqpPjxyHL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Football (2nd Edition) [Paperback]"){kind=icon}
Joe Theismann was the winning quarterback in Super Bowl XVII, a two-time Pro Bowl player, as well as the most productive quarterback ever to the Washington Redskins. In 1983, he was voted MVP of the two NFL and also the Super Bowl. He co-hosts ESPN's popular NFL Countdown and Primetime. He may be inducted in the GTE Academic All-American Hall of Fame along with the Sports Hall of Fame of New Jersey.
