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jakewritesbooks's review
3.0
This book should be read by all sports fans but with a grain of salt the size of Montana. Zirin makes a lot of good points about how owners have hampered the sports that we all love. I particularly enjoyed his chapter on Liverpool and the loathsome Tom Hicks (who gives American soccer fans a bad rap). Nevertheless, the author makes way too many leaps based on shaky evidence or goes to far to justify a point that backs his political leanings. Not that I am opposed to what he believes but he lets his judgment get clouded often. For instance, one thing he doesn't mention at all about the reconstruction of the Super Dome is that it was heavily, heavily insured and all of that money was put back into it. Again, he makes great points and it would help for sports fans to have some light shed on the owners' collective greed (especially considering the pending NFL lockout). But because he takes too many liberties, I really can't rate this more than a 3 (more like a 3.5).
adamls's review against another edition
2.0
I'm a big fan of Dave Zirin's columns, and his dedication to injecting radical political analysis into the coverage of sports. I was more interested in reading What's My Name, Fool? or A People's History of Sports, but read this one instead when I found that this was the only book by Zirin the UMass library had available at the moment.
Ultimately, I found it disappointing. The book reads like a collection of columns, even though it isn't. While the stories Zirin spins about owners like Donald Sterling, George Steinbrenner, James Dolan, Clay Bennett, and more might be unfamiliar to those who only watch scoreboards and not headlines, as someone who follows the behind the scenes of sports, I was disappointed that Zirin added almost nothing new to the stories he tells, and often covers them in significantly less depth than other sources. In fact, he spends so much of the book discussing the way public money is being used to finance sports stadiums that it made me wonder why I wasn't reading Field of Schemes instead.
Zirin does bring up an important question: to what degree should sports teams belong to the communities they're a part of, versus often craven, profit-seeking owners who would happily extort those communities or ditch them entirely? If he had approached the book much more strongly from that perspective, it would have been much more interesting, rather than reading him make tired jokes about Eddy Curry that Bill Simmons told better years ago.
Ultimately, I found it disappointing. The book reads like a collection of columns, even though it isn't. While the stories Zirin spins about owners like Donald Sterling, George Steinbrenner, James Dolan, Clay Bennett, and more might be unfamiliar to those who only watch scoreboards and not headlines, as someone who follows the behind the scenes of sports, I was disappointed that Zirin added almost nothing new to the stories he tells, and often covers them in significantly less depth than other sources. In fact, he spends so much of the book discussing the way public money is being used to finance sports stadiums that it made me wonder why I wasn't reading Field of Schemes instead.
Zirin does bring up an important question: to what degree should sports teams belong to the communities they're a part of, versus often craven, profit-seeking owners who would happily extort those communities or ditch them entirely? If he had approached the book much more strongly from that perspective, it would have been much more interesting, rather than reading him make tired jokes about Eddy Curry that Bill Simmons told better years ago.
joemacare's review against another edition
4.0
For someone who's come to Zirin through more recent work, this book is interesting because it contains much of what he does best but also demonstrates ways in which he has advanced as a writer and thinker since the time of writing (2015 Zirin has a much better take on issues around sex work and mental health than the way they're referred to here).
billsimoni's review against another edition
2.0
When I saw this on the shelf, I expected to love this book. The subject alone promises volumes worth of material. Instead it left me cold.
I'm on board with public financing of stadiums being a poor investment for taxpayers. But, to suggest that such financing should give the government the right to assert eminent domain against the teams when the owner wants to do something you don't like is preposterous.
Also, after decrying the evils of publicly-funded stadiums, he then proceeded to ensure you understood how miserable the experience is at the Redskins' FedEx Field. He fails to mention that stadium was financed by the owner. Can't have it both ways.
Overall, it's worth the read, but if you can't stand reading a very hard Left perspective on the topic, stay away.
I'm on board with public financing of stadiums being a poor investment for taxpayers. But, to suggest that such financing should give the government the right to assert eminent domain against the teams when the owner wants to do something you don't like is preposterous.
Also, after decrying the evils of publicly-funded stadiums, he then proceeded to ensure you understood how miserable the experience is at the Redskins' FedEx Field. He fails to mention that stadium was financed by the owner. Can't have it both ways.
Overall, it's worth the read, but if you can't stand reading a very hard Left perspective on the topic, stay away.
simplyb's review against another edition
4.0
As a sports writer for such publications as "The Nation," it should be no surprise that Mr. Zirin has a liberal and progressive bent when it comes to the subject of wealthy-beyond-belief professional sports owners. But you'd also be remiss to think that makes him a Cassandra on the subject, either...
The thesis is explicated well and in a very clear and entertaining fashion, and operates on a simple premise: private professional sports ownership in the United States if ruining the games we love. He goes on to provide ample examples of this happening, and for a variety of reasons. Most of it comes down to what he charitably calls the privitization of profit and the socialization of risk/cost that has stuffed the coffers of the few while punishing the collective of the city and the municipalities, but significant energy is spent on issues such as extorting stadiums out of municipalities when the billionaire owners could fund it on their own, the minimal input of fans (and sometimes even managers!) into the way the sports teams are run, the minimal investment into the community, the tendencies to pick up and move and abandon entire sport markets (the removal of the SuperSonics from Seattle gets Zirin's especial scorn), as well as the politicization and Christian conversion politics of many sports owners (such as Faith Days in baseball, most notoriously the Colorado Rockies). He does hold up one shining example of the way a professional team can be run, obviously a team near and dear to my heart.
Again, you can throw around political bias and rhetoric all you want. But for anybody on the spectrum of casual hometown fan to die-hard fanatic, can anybody make a compelling argument for the way most owners and league operators treat their sports teams and their fans? Is the extortion and proselytization and ability to get rich off of the taxpayers' backs truly a defensible position. Zirin would argue no, it isn't. And I would agree wholeheartedly.
The thesis is explicated well and in a very clear and entertaining fashion, and operates on a simple premise: private professional sports ownership in the United States if ruining the games we love. He goes on to provide ample examples of this happening, and for a variety of reasons. Most of it comes down to what he charitably calls the privitization of profit and the socialization of risk/cost that has stuffed the coffers of the few while punishing the collective of the city and the municipalities, but significant energy is spent on issues such as extorting stadiums out of municipalities when the billionaire owners could fund it on their own, the minimal input of fans (and sometimes even managers!) into the way the sports teams are run, the minimal investment into the community, the tendencies to pick up and move and abandon entire sport markets (the removal of the SuperSonics from Seattle gets Zirin's especial scorn), as well as the politicization and Christian conversion politics of many sports owners (such as Faith Days in baseball, most notoriously the Colorado Rockies). He does hold up one shining example of the way a professional team can be run, obviously a team near and dear to my heart.
Again, you can throw around political bias and rhetoric all you want. But for anybody on the spectrum of casual hometown fan to die-hard fanatic, can anybody make a compelling argument for the way most owners and league operators treat their sports teams and their fans? Is the extortion and proselytization and ability to get rich off of the taxpayers' backs truly a defensible position. Zirin would argue no, it isn't. And I would agree wholeheartedly.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
3.0
This book should be read by all sports fans but with a grain of salt the size of Montana. Zirin makes a lot of good points about how owners have hampered the sports that we all love. I particularly enjoyed his chapter on Liverpool and the loathsome Tom Hicks (who gives American soccer fans a bad rap). Nevertheless, the author makes way too many leaps based on shaky evidence or goes to far to justify a point that backs his political leanings. Not that I am opposed to what he believes but he lets his judgment get clouded often. For instance, one thing he doesn't mention at all about the reconstruction of the Super Dome is that it was heavily, heavily insured and all of that money was put back into it. Again, he makes great points and it would help for sports fans to have some light shed on the owners' collective greed (especially considering the pending NFL lockout). But because he takes too many liberties, I really can't rate this more than a 3 (more like a 3.5).
mattpr_co's review
4.0
Great summary about how the owners of our sports teams use our allegiances to build tax-payer funded stadiums, preach their religious and political message to a captive audience, and proverbially take their ball and go home when they don't get there way. Overall it's a charge to us fans to fight the hard fight to have a more active roll in what rightly belongs to us as those in Green Bay were able to do.
alexkerner's review against another edition
4.0
Several lessons: so many owners are psychopaths. Second, a socialist community owned model of team ownership is the way to go. Great read.
stanl's review
4.0
A thoughtful argument for making major league sports in the US of A public utilities. This is especially the case when the debt is collectivized and the profit privatized. Non-sports fans would find these musings about the political economy of big time sports of interest.
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