Author: David George Surdam
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496209702
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
The National Football League has long reigned as America's favorite professional sports league. In its early days, however, it was anything but a dominant sports industry, barely surviving World War II. Its rise began after the war, and the 1950s was a pivotal decade for the league. Run to Glory and Profits tells the economic story of how in one decade the NFL transformed from having a modest following in the Northeast to surpassing baseball as this country's most popular sport. To break from the margins of the sports landscape, pro football brought innovation, action, skill, and episodic suspense on "any given Sunday." These factors in turn drove attendance and rising revenues. Team owners were quick to embrace television as a new medium to put the league in front of a national audience. Based on primary documents, David George Surdam provides an economic analysis in telling the business story behind the NFL's rise to popularity. Did the league's vaunted competitive balance in the decade result from its more generous revenue sharing and its reverse-order draft? How did the league combat rival leagues, such as the All-America Football Conference and the American Football League? Although strife between owners and players developed quickly, pro-football fans stayed loyal because the product itself remained so good.
Author: David G. Surdam
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 080323595X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 446
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Book Description
An economic history of baseball during the Depression.
Author: Daniel M. DuBois
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350134732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
This book explores how American sports, especially basketball, baseball and American football, have projected the US into the world, and brought the world into America. Taking a chronological approach it traces the development of American sports from the turn of the 20th century, highlighting how international forces such as immigration, geopolitics and war have influenced the trajectory of sport in the US, and thus the American experience. DuBois also considers the globalization of American sport and how this soft power shaped international relations throughout the American century. Addressing key questions about the role of sport in the rise of the United States, it frames themes that have come to define sports history; gender, race, economics and politics. It argues that while sport has not necessarily been a catalyst for change, it has often mirrored social issues, and sometimes served as an important tool of progress. Synthesizing major works alongside primary sources, the chapters study boxing, hockey, track and field and soccer alongside the 'big three' (basketball, baseball and American football) through a number of case studies to offer a novel interpretation of American sport history. Spanning early Native American sport, the export of baseball in the American empire, the role of basketball in the Cold War, the influence of immigrants and women in sports, and modern day sport culture, American Sport in International History asks what the role of sport has been and will be in a shifting international environment.
Author: Duane W Rockerbie
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461478855
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 77
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Book Description
A number of clubs in professional sports leagues exhibit winning streaks over a number of consecutive seasons that do not conform to the standard economic model of a professional sports league developed by El Hodiri and Quirk (1994) and Fort and Quirk (1995). These clubs appear to display what we term "unsustainable runs", defined as a period of two to four seasons where the club acquires expensive talent and attempts to win a league championship despite not having the market size to sustain such a competitive position in the long run. The standard model predicts that clubs that locate in large economic markets will tend to acquire more talent, achieve more success on the field and at the box office than clubs that are located in small markets. This book builds a model that can allow unsustainable runs yet retains most of the features of the standard model. The model is then subjected to empirical verification. The new model we develop in the book has as its central feature the possibility of generating two equilibria for a club. In the empirical sections of the book, we use time-series analysis to attempt to test for the presence of unsustainable runs using historical data from National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Baseball (MLB). The multiple equilibria model retains all of the features of the standard model of a professional sports league that is accepted quite universally by economists, yet it offers a much richer approach by including an exploration of the effects of revenues that are earned at the league level (television, apparel, naming rights, etc.) that are then shared by all of the member clubs, making this book unique and of great interest to scholars in a variety of fields in economics.
Author: Gerald R. Gems
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810836853
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Sports history has emerged as a popular study over the past quarter century, and scholars have fueled this interest by providing a wealth of information on baseball and its role in American culture. Despite this increasing focus on the connection between sports and societal values, football, the sport that emerged in the late nineteenth century and merged the values of winning and commercialization with the culture of higher education, has been left relatively unexplored. This gap in sports history has left many questions unanswered, including football's link to American cultural values. Gerald R. Gems has filled this gap in sports history with his latest title, For Pride, Profit, and Patriarchy: Football and the Incorporation of American Cultural Values. This intriguing resource covers a host of issues including the rise of football, football and feminism, militarism and leadership training, and multiculturalism in football. A broad and comprehensive analysis of the ways in which football addressed the cultural and ideological tensions within American society during its period of development and consolidation after the Civil War, this study is ideal for everyone from the football enthusiast to the general reader.
Author: David George Surdam
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496205731
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
As the 1919 World Series scandal simmered throughout the 1920 season, tight pennant races drove attendance to new peaks and presaged a decade of general prosperity for baseball. Babe Ruth shattered his own home-run record and, buoyed by a booming economy, professional sports enjoyed what sportswriters termed a “Golden Age of Sports.” Throughout the tumultuous 1920s, Major League Baseball remained a mixture of competition and cooperation. Teams could improve by player trades, buying Minor League stars, or signing untried youths. Players and owners had their usual contentious relationship, with owners maintaining considerable control over their players. Owners adjusted the game so that the 1920s witnessed a surge in slugging and a diminution in base stealing, and they provided a better ballpark experience by both improving their stadiums and minimizing disruptions by rowdy fans. However, they hesitated to adapt to new technologies such as radio, electrical lighting, and air travel. The Major Leagues remained an enclave for white people, while African Americans toiled in the newly established Negro Leagues, where salaries and profits were skimpy. By analyzing the economic and financial aspects of Major League Baseball, The Age of Ruth and Landis shows how baseball during the 1920s experienced both strife and prosperity, innovation and conservatism. With figures such as the incomparable Babe Ruth, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, and Eddie Collins, the decade featured an exciting brand of livelier baseball, new stadiums, and overall stability.
Author: David Sheward
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557836700
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
Examines the life and accomplishments of this powerful actor through a review of the roles he has played and awards he has received while delving into his personal life and the dramas he managed off-stage, including a sexual harrassment suit and an affair with Ava Gardner.
Author: Ryan Nerz
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1466802324
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
Journalist Ryan Nerz spent a year penetrating the highest echelons of international competitive eating and Eat This Book is the fascinating and gut-bustingly hilarious account of his journey. Nerz gives us all the facts about the history of the IFOCE (Independent Federation of Competitive Eating)--from the story of a clever Nathan's promotion that began in 1916 on the corner of Surf and Stillwell in Coney Island to the intricacies of individual international competitions, the controversial Belt of Fat Theory and the corporate wars to control this exploding sport. He keeps the reader turning the pages as we are swept up in the lives of Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, "Cookie" Jarvis, "Hungry" Charles Hardy, and many other top gurgitators whose egos and secret agendas, hopes and dreams are revealed in dramatic detail. As Nerz goes on his own quest to become a top gurgitator, we become obsessed with him as he lies awake at night in physical pain from downing dozens of burgers and learning to chug gallons of water to expand his increasingly abused stomach. Sparing no one's appetite, Nerz reveals the training, game-day strategies and after-effects of competition in this delectably shocking banquet of gluttony and glory on the competitive eating circuit.
Author: William Magnuson
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541601580
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 343
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Book Description
A history of how corporate innovation has shaped society, from ancient Rome to Silicon Valley From legacy manufacturers to emerging tech giants, corporations wield significant power over our lives, our economy, and our politics. Some celebrate them as engines of progress and prosperity. Others argue that they recklessly pursue profit at the expense of us all. In For Profit, law professor William Magnuson reveals that both visions contain an element of truth. The story of the corporation is a human story, about a diverse group of merchants, bankers, and investors that have over time come to shape the landscape of our modern economy. Its central characters include both the brave, powerful, and ingenious and the conniving, fraudulent, and vicious. At times, these characters have been one and the same. Yet as Magnuson shows, while corporations haven’t always behaved admirably, their purpose is a noble one. From their beginnings in the Roman Republic, corporations have been designed to promote the common good. By recapturing this spirit of civic virtue, For Profit argues, corporations can help craft a society in which all of us—not just shareholders—benefit from the profits of enterprise.
Author: Ed McLaughlin
Publisher: Blue Sunsets Books
ISBN: 9780986304347
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
If you have the dream to become an entrepreneur and start your own business, The Purpose Is Profit was written for you. It covers the full arc-from the struggle to conceive the right idea, to funding your startup, to scaling the business, to executing the exit strategy. The appendix includes The Startup Roadmap and The Startup Funding Guide.
