Showing titles in Sociology of Sports

From the number-one best-selling author of This Town comes a thrillingly raw and hysterical account of the billionaires, crooks, charlatans and scoundrels that own and run the NFL. American Football - with its celebrity players, billionaire owners, and cheerleaders with flawless teeth - is more American than apple pie. Which is why celebrated New York Times journalist Mark Leibovich has chosen football as the vehicle through which to examine the troubled state of Trump’s America.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Secret Footballer: What Goes on Tour by The Secret Footballer. Since his first book was published in 2012, The Secret Footballer has been able to take the listener behind the scenes of footballers' lives like no other player has been or will ever be able to do. Anonymity has been a potent weapon in revealing the real world of football stars, and five years on, he has now penned the work that all his fellow professionals have been urging him to do from the start: The Secret Footballer: What Goes on Tour.

Professional wrestling has always been wrapped in mystery. After a century of masquerading as legitimate sport, at last pro-wrestling has begun to show the potential of its form. At its core, it is live combat theatre, and no one has done more to codify and analyze this mesmerizing art form than Mike Quackenbush. To aid a generation of evolving performers to meet the demands of modern audiences, here is Toolbox - Building Better Pro-Wrestling.

In The Good Sport, Kevin White takes an unflinching look at the current state of intercollegiate sports, including the tumultuous changes brought on by the Supreme Court's landmark decision on name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. Drawing on his decades of leadership, White examines the chaos, challenges, and opportunities of this new era—and why he believes the future of college sports hangs in the balance.

When a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym moves in across the street from his office, Jonathan Gottschall sees a challenge and an opportunity. Pushing 40, out of shape, and disenchanted with his job as an adjunct English professor, part of him yearns to cross the street and join up. The other part is terrified.

For decades, osteopathic physician Larry Nassar built a sterling reputation as the go-to doctor for America's Olympians while treating countless others at his office on Michigan State University's campus. It was largely within the high-pressure world of competitive gymnastics that Nassar exploited young girls, sexually assaulting hundreds of them under the guise of medical treatment. In Start by Believing, John Barr and Dan Murphy confront Nassar's acts, which represent the largest sex abuse scandal to impact the sporting world.

Captain, father, leader, a fearless ambassador for the causes he believes in and a world-class midfielder, Jordan Henderson is all of these things—and it is why he is one of the most widely respected players of his generation. His story will go down in legend but his story also carries an inspirational message for anyone, showing hurdles and barriers won't stop you reaching your goals. In this, his first autobiography, Jordan reveals how an early love for the game as a kid became an all-consuming passion.

This is a story about ambition, family rivalries, extreme wealth, power, murder and disinformation; of political corruption, dictatorship and, at its root, of how sport - football, yes, but also golf, boxing, tennis and even e-sports - has become a vital geopolitical tool for Saudi Arabia. An examination of soft power, manipulation and radicalisation in the 21st century, James Montague charts the rise of Mohammed bin Salman, a then unknown prince, and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi; the desperate efforts to buy Newcastle United, subvert FIFA and then take on the PGA tour, and the US congress.

The Competitive Buddha is about mastery, leadership, and spirituality. Learn what you need to keep, what you need to discard, and what you need to add to your mental, emotional, and spiritual skill set as an athlete, coach, leader, parent, CEO, or any other performer in life. Understand how Buddhism can help you to be better prepared for sports and life, and how sports and life can teach you about Buddhism. Lynch sheds light on the positive aspects of competition, adding Eastern thought and spirituality to sport, while elevating competitors and the game.

So rapid has this national transformation been that it has taken place within the lifetimes of these remarkable young sportsmen. Colombia Es Pasión! How a New Generation of Cyclists Changed a Nation explores the lives and dreams of each of Colombia's leading cyclists. Theirs are inspiring stories of overcoming poverty and violence, sickness and corruption - of the emergence of the indigenous to global sporting glory.

When James Montague first began covering football in the Middle East two decades ago, people asked him what future there could possibly be for the beautiful game in one of the most volatile regions in the world. In the years that followed, it would become one of the biggest stories in global sport, from the from revolutionary ultras of the Arab Spring and the takeover of some of the world's biggest clubs by the Emirati super rich, to Qatar's controversial journey towards hosting the 2022 World Cup finals.

Tough Mudder is not a race. It's a challenge. Unlike other endurance events, Tough Mudder encourages team spirit. The course's design forces you to seek help from others - and with 20 obstacles, 40 tons of ice and 500,000 litres of grade-A mud set over 10 to 12 miles, you're going to need it. This revival of community is the key to the company's success. In It Takes a Tribe, founder Will Dean explores the mental, physical and social principles behind the experience and reveals how he built a global tribe.

Nearly fifty years after taking up the game, Michael Bamberger made a pair of startling discoveries: golf had never meant more to him, and he knew almost nothing about it. He decided to cover himself in green in a whole new way. He spent a year inside the ropes of professional golf—playing, caddying, competing, volunteering, and interviewing—looking for a door into the sport’s sanctum sanctorum.

To the Linksland is the captivating memoir of Bamberger’s golfing pilgrimage/extended honeymoon. From an all-night caddie bus on the back roads of southern Europe to Stark’s secret six-hole course in the Scottish Highlands, Bamberger takes you on a journey into the heart of golf. This thirtieth-anniversary edition of Bamberger’s classic, lyrical tale of discovery is bookended with a new introduction by Michael Murphy and a new afterword by Bamberger.

Some 75% of American families want their kids to play sports. Athletics are training grounds for character, friendship, and connection; at their best, sports insulate kids from hardship and prepare them for adult life. But youth sports have changed so dramatically over the last 25 years that they no longer deliver the healthy outcomes everyone wants. Instead, unbeknownst to most parents, kids who play competitive organized sports are more likely to burn out or suffer from overuse injuries than to develop their characters or build healthy habits. What happened to kids' sports?

In Losing Big, historian Jonathan D. Cohen lays out the astonishing emergence of online sports gambling, from sportsbook executives drafting legislation to an addicted gambler confessing their $300,000 losses. Sports gambling is here to stay, and the stakes could not be higher. Losing Big explains how this brewing crisis came to be, and how it can be addressed before new generations get hooked.

In an increasingly secular, fragmented, and distracted culture, nothing brings Americans together quite like sports. On Sundays in September, more families worship at the altar of the NFL than at any church. This appeal, which cuts across all demographic and ideological lines, makes sports perhaps the last unifying mass ritual of our era, with huge numbers of people all focused on the same thing at the same moment. That timeless, live quality makes sports very powerful, and very lucrative. And the media spectacle around them is only getting bigger, brighter, and noisier.

In his brilliant new memoir, Pat Nevin takes us on a journey to the less glamorous side of football. From Tranmere to Kilmarnock, he plays some of the best football he's ever played. Then, in an unprecedented twist of fate, finds himself both player and Chief Executive of Scottish First Division club Motherwell.

Are you ready to join the club? If your desire is to build a stronger and well-chiseled body naturally without steroids; then this is the book for you! It will not only enable you shape the body of your dreams, but it will also empower you to stay the course.

Alejandro Valverde - the 'Green Bullet' - was a symbol of Spanish sport. Supremely talented, hard-working beyond belief, he was ranked no.1 in the world four times before retiring in 2022. He is a champion of undeniable charisma and immense achievement - and yet also a convicted doping cheat. Appearing in a list of encoded names, Valverde was one of many at the heart of a doping ring for elite sportsmen. Discovered by Spanish police in the infamous Operacion Puerto, the revelations contained in the operation threatened to rip cycling apart.