Download or read book Bad Sports written by Dave Zirin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-07-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A THOUGHT-PROVOKING LOOK AT THE BIG BUSINESS AND IMMORAL PRACTICES BEHIND PROFESSIONAL SPORTS BY ACCLAIMED SPORTSWRITER DAVE ZIRIN, HAILED AS THE “CONSCIENCE OF AMERICAN SPORTSWRITING” (THE WASHINGTON POST ) The fastest-growing sector of today’s sports audience is the alienated fan. Complaints abound: from inflated ticket prices, $6 hot dogs, and $9 beers to owners endlessly demanding new multimillion-dollar stadiums funded by public tax dollars. Those sitting in the owners’ boxes are increasingly placing profit over players’ performances and fan loyalty. Bad Sports cuts through the hype and bombast to zero in on tales of abusive, dictatorial owners who move their teams thousands of miles away from their fan base, use their stadiums as religious and political platforms, or hold communities ransom for millions of dollars of taxpayer money to fund their gargantuan stadiums. As the multibillion-dollar sports-industrial complex continues to lumber along, Dave Zirin is the voice in the wilderness, speaking out for the common fan with a tough, passionate, and intelligent voice that will remind readers that there is more to sportswriting than glowing athlete profiles.
Download or read book The OWNERS All NBA NFL MLB Team Owners Since 1920 written by Bill Beermann and published by . This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A capsule view of the owners of America's "big three" pro sports teams. From yesterday's millionaires to today's billionaires, The Owners is packed with stories, anecdotes, financial deals and blurbs about the individuals who founded, bought or inherited these 92 teams and built pro sports into a mega-billion-dollar entertainment industry.
Download or read book Winning Starts at the Top written by Duncan Ternus and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professional sports team owners need to carefully plan their estates in order to win on and off the field. These individuals are arguably the most important figures in a professional sports team because their actions affect everyone associated with the team, from players to fans. Team owners represent some of the wealthiest people in America and have large estates that often include other business ventures besides their sports teams. When team owners take inadequate estate planning steps, their estates are often forced to sell their teams in order to pay estate taxes. This in turn can lead to team instability or, worst case scenario from a fan's perspective, a forced relocation of the team. This comment examines some of the ways today's professional sports team owners can plan their estates in order to not only continue their personal success but their team's success as well. Federal estate taxes are the largest hurdle for team owners because the tax affects only the wealthiest of estates, and planning one's estate to avoid these estate taxes is vital for a team owners' success. The future of the federal estate tax remains to be seen under the Trump administration, which could lead to substantial gain for team owners should the tax be repealed altogether. Team owners also need to consider state estate taxes for the states in which they are domiciled. Over the past few years, notable professional sports team owners' estates have experienced varying degrees of success. This comment will examine in detail the estates of Tom Benson and the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans, Ralph Wilson and the Buffalo Bills, William Davidson and the Detroit Pistons, and Jerry Buss and the Los Angeles Lakers. This comment also provides many strategies for sports team owners to limit their estate taxes, such as use of gift giving, charitable donations, family limited partnerships, and irrevocable life insurance trusts. A family business plan can also ensure a stable transition of ownership when the owner dies and passes the team to the family.
Download or read book Relocating Teams and Expanding Leagues in Professional Sports written by Frank P. Jozsa and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1999-08-30 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the business of professional league sports, market conditions are the key determinate of the financial success or failure of a team. In the last few years, major league sports has experienced both growth into new markets and relocations of existing teams. Owners and the leagues use demographics, economic data, and governmental support to decide on where and when to expand and relocate. This book examines the sports business from 1950 through 2000. Historical demographic, economic, and team-related data provide the context. The authors apply metropolitan area statistics such as population growth and income, game attendance, and estimated market values to examine the business decisions made by individual teams in professional baseball, football, and basketball. The book looks at specific teams in terms of their long-term viability as a franchise and ranks their performances in economic and business terms. It also examines the related issues of taxpayer subsidies for new venues and the economic impact of professional sports on cities and regions. The book is a fascinating and comprehensive look at the business of sports and its place in American society, business, and economics.
Download or read book The Business of Sports written by Scott Rosner and published by Jones & Bartlett Learning. This book was released on 2004 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book covers professional, Olympic and collegiate sports and each chapter has a fully developed introduction to explaine the relevance of the articles to be presented.
Download or read book Home Team written by Michael N. Danielson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-04 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princeton's Michael N. Danielson studies the connections between professional team sports in North America and the places where teams play. Danielson is particularly interested in the political aspects between professional sports teams and city governments. Anyone who is interested in the present condition and future prospects of professional sports will be captivated by this informative and provocative book.
Download or read book Pay Dirt written by James P. Quirk and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why would a Japanese millionaire want to buy the Seattle Mariners baseball team, when he has admitted that he has never played in or even seen a baseball game? Cash is the answer: major league baseball, like professional football, basketball, and hockey, is now big business with the potential to bring millions of dollars in profits to owners. Not very long ago, however, buying a sports franchise was a hazardous investment risked only by die-hard fans wealthy enough to lose parts of fortunes made in other businesses. What forces have changed team ownership from sports-fan folly to big-business savvy? Why has The Wall Street Journal become popular reading in pro sports locker rooms? And why are sports pages now dominated by economic clashes between owners and players, cities with franchises and cities without them, leagues and players' unions, and team lawyers and players' lawyers? In answering these questions, James Quirk and Rodney Fort have written the most complete book on the business and economics of professional sports, past and present. Pay Dirt offers a wealth of information and analysis on the reserve clause, salary determination, competitive balance in sports leagues, the market for franchises, tax sheltering, arenas and stadiums, and rival leagues. The authors present an abundance of historical material, much of it new, including team ownership histories and data on attendance, TV revenue, stadium and arena contracts, and revenues and costs. League histories, team statistics, stories about players and owners, and sports lore of all kinds embellish the work. Quirk and Fort are writing for anyone interested in sports in the 1990s: players, players' agents, general managers, sportswriters, and, most of all, sports fans.
Download or read book Hard Ball written by James P. Quirk and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can possibly account for the strange state of affairs in professional sports today? There are billionaire owners and millionaire players, but both groups are constantly squabbling over money. Many pro teams appear to be virtual "cash machines," generating astronomical annual revenues, but their owners seem willing to uproot them and move to any city willing to promise increased profits. At the same time, mayors continue to cook up "sweetheart deals" that lavish benefits on wealthy teams while imposing crushing financial hardships on cities that are already strapped with debt. To fans today, professional sports teams often look more like professional extortionists. In Hard Ball, James Quirk and Rodney Fort take on a daunting challenge: explaining exactly how things have gotten to this point and proposing a way out. Both authors are professional economists who specialize in the economics of sports. Their previous book, Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team Sports, is widely acknowledged as the Bible of sports economics. Here, however, they are writing for sports fans who are trying to make sense out of the perplexing world of pro team sports. It is not money, in itself, that is the cause of today's problems, they assert. In fact, the real problem stems from one simple fact: pro sports are monopolies that are fully sanctioned by the U.S. government. Eliminate the monopolies, say Quirk and Fort, and all problems can be solved. If the monopolies are allowed to persist, so will today's woes. The authors discuss all four major pro team sports: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Hard Ball is filled with anecdotes, case studies, and factual information that are brought together here for the first time. Quirk and Fort devote chapters to the main protagonists in the pro sports saga--media, unions, players, owners, politicians, and leagues--before they offer their own prescription for correcting the ills that afflict sports today. The result is an engaging and persuasive book that is sure to be widely read, cited, and debated. It is essential reading for every fan.
Download or read book Behind the Line of Scrimmage written by Michael Huyghue and published by Center Street. This book was released on 2018-08-28 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Former collegiate star, sports agent, and NFL Executive Michael Huyghue recounts his journey in professional sports and shows how race and racism operate among the rich and the white and extend way beyond the NFL and the world of sports executives. With a deep, abiding love for sports, Huyghue chronicles his journey from childhood athletics to one of the highest-ranking black executives in the NFL. Huyghue reveals a bird's eye view of the inner workings of the exclusive inner sanctum of the NFL owners, players and management. The author's journey as an athlete and lawyer provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors in the world of professional sports and collegiate athletic programs. His story as a pioneer and a change agent is one of hope, triumph, setback and sheer perseverance that will resonate with any sports fan. It is a blueprint-marked by wry humor and without bitterness -- to successfully navigate the journey that remains for minorities to succeed as front office executives in the multibillion-dollar sports industry. It is also a not often told chronicle of growing up black and male in white suburban America. While black athletes are ubiquitous on the playing field and front pages of tabloids, the challenge remains to gain true power in the multibillion-dollar sports industry. Huyghue details that struggle play by play.
Download or read book Sports Finance and Management written by Jason A. Winfree and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2018-10-10 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the sport business continues to evolve, so too, does Sport Finance and Management. The first version of this book took an in-depth look at changes in the sport industry, including interconnecting financial issues between teams and their associated businesses, the nature of fan loyalty influences, and the impact of sponsorship on team revenues. This second edition updates each of these elements, introduces relevant case study examples in new chapters, and examines the impact of changes in facility design, media opportunities, and league and conference policies on the economic success of teams, the salaries earned by professional players, and the finances of collegiate athletics.
Download or read book Sports Capitalism written by Frank P. Jozsa and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book focuses on how, when, where and why the US-based professional sports leagues extend their brands and penetrate markets in nations across the globe. The book examines the strategies, progress and expectations of each league despite the cultural, economic and political barriers that exist between and within countries and areas. It offers a model of the sports business and, where appropriate, the emergence, evolution and growth of prominent women's sports leagues are documented. This book is unique as there are no other academic publications that study and report the global ambitions of this special group of organizations in one volume. Readers such as college and university sports history, management, marketing and international business professors, students and researchers can use and apply the book, as either a teaching supplement, reference and/or literature source. It will also appeal to targeted groups beyond the academic community with strategic economic incentives to learn about sports capitalism, such as sports entrepreneurs and league officials.
Download or read book Field of Schemes written by Neil deMause and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015-03 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Glory for Sale written by Jon Morgan and published by Bancroft Press. This book was released on 1997-09 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A behind-the-scenes account of the Cleveland Browns' move to Baltimore and an exposé of an NFL in which "big money and stadium economics have replaced fan allegiance and gridiron heroics."--Back cover.
Download or read book Fans of the World Unite written by Stephen F. Ross and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2008-08-19 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fans of baseball, football, basketball, and hockey have long been exploited and oppressed by the monopolistic practices of team owners. The time has come for a revolution in the organization of major U.S. sports! Fans of the World, Unite! is a clarion call to sports fans. Appealing to anyone who is in despair due to the greed and incompetence of team owners, this book proposes a significant restructuring of sports leagues. It sets out a rational program for a revolution that will serve the best interests of the fans and of the sport itself. But Stephen F. Ross and Stefan Szymanski are no Marxists: they show how a revolution in the organization of sports might even benefit the owners. By harnessing the power of markets, sports leagues can be made both more responsive to the needs of the fans, and more efficient. Ross and Szymanski have spent many years evaluating the ways in which leagues work across the globe. Drawing on their extensive study of leagues, the authors boil down their plan to two major reforms. Borrowing from NASCAR, they propose that team owners should not own sports leagues as well. Rather, league ownership should be separate. Their second proposal is drawn from soccer: introduce competition through a promotion and relegation system. In this type of system, the worst teams in the league are kicked out at the end of the season and replaced by the best performing teams in the next division down. This gives poor performing teams incentive to step up their game, and allows fresh blood to enter the leagues if the poor performers fail to do so. The main goal of these reforms is to align the financial interest of those who own the league with the best interests of the fans and the sport. Having laid out the problem and the solution, the authors skillfully address practical implications of introducing their scheme, suggesting how leagues might at least make some changes, if not all of those suggested. The time for change has come! Armed with this book, and with fairness on their side, fans can set forth to begin a revolution.
Download or read book Playing The Field written by Charles C. Euchner and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 1994-09-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Details how owners . . . have shamelessly played cities against one another to get sweetheart deals for their stadiums.” —Sports Illustrated Can a sports franchise “blackmail” a city into getting what it wants—a new stadium, say, or favorable leasing terms—by threatening to relocate? In 1982, the owners of the Chicago White Sox pledged to keep the team in Chicago if the city approved a $5-million tax-exempt bond to finance construction of luxury suites at Comiskey Park. The city council approved it. A few years later, when Comiskey Park was in need of renovation, the owners threatened to move the team to Florida unless a new stadium was built. A site was chosen near the old stadium, property condemned, residents evicted, and a new stadium built. “We had to make threats,” the owners said. “If we didn't have the threat of moving, we wouldn’t have gotten the deal.” Sports is not a dominant industry in any city, this book points out, yet it receives the kind of attention one might expect to be lavished on major producers and employers. In Playing the Field, Charles Euchner examines the relationships between Los Angeles and the Raiders, Baltimore and the Colts and the Orioles, and Chicago and the White Sox, arguing that, in the absence of public standards for equitable arbitration between cities and teams, the sports industry has the ability to steer negotiations in a way that leaves cities vulnerable. He reveals what lies behind this leverage—and what that says about the urban political process.
Download or read book Football for a Buck written by Jeff Pearlman and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2018 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a multiple New York Times bestselling author, the rollicking, outrageous, you-can't-make-this-up story of the USFL The United States Football League--known fondly to millions of sports fans as the USFL--was the last football league to not merely challenge the NFL, but cause its owners and executives to collectively shudder. It spanned three seasons, 1983-85. It secured multiple television deals. It drew millions of fans and launched the careers of legends. But then it died beneath the weight of a particularly egotistical and bombastic owner--a New York businessman named Donald J. Trump. The league featured as many as 18 teams, and included such superstars as Steve Young, Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker, Reggie White, Doug Flutie and Mike Rozier. In Football for a Buck, the dogged reporter and biographer Jeff Pearlman draws on more than four hundred interviews to unearth all the salty, untold stories of one of the craziest sports entities to have ever captivated America. From 1980s drug excess to airplane brawls and player-coach punch outs, to backroom business deals, to some of the most enthralling and revolutionary football ever seen, Pearlman transports readers back in time to this crazy, boozy, audacious, unforgettable era of the game. He shows how fortunes were made and lost on the backs of professional athletes and also how, thirty years ago, Trump was a scoundrel and a spoiler. For fans of Terry Pluto's Loose Balls or Jim Bouton's Ball Four and of course Pearlman's own stranger-than-fiction narratives, Football for a Buck is sports as high entertainment--and a cautionary tale of the dangers of ego and excess.
Download or read book Sports Finance and Management written by Jason A. Winfree and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2011-08-29 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This definitive text on sports management and finance focuses on how the modern sports team has evolved. Addressing the fact that the 21st Century sports team has turned to a real estate development, media and entertainment corporation, this book focuses on the how and why of the change, rather than traditional finance topics such as borrowing money, ticket pricing and player compensation. It includes an assessment of ownership structures and discusses real estate development, facility designs, and their fit into urban centers.
