Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love

[RamboLiberal]

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.

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Sports-Owners-Ruining-Games/dp/1416554750/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278719731&sr=8-2

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. People are joining me? WHO KNEW?

Before the Baseball strike I even went to a few games. It was enjoyable and ahem different from the few games I went to as part of the EMS crew.

After the Baseball strike I have not gone to a game or followed it. My SIL who is a sport head, even told me that I really had no interest around dinner time. For her dinner without her Cleveland Cavaliers is no dinner. I guess now she is pissed at them for losing the king, but I digress.

All the sports I follow is the World Cup these days... just don't ask for specific names of specific teams... I follow that for the beauty of the game. Hell, we were looking to do something strange... get Jerseys... 90 dollars for a Jersey... are they fucking nuts?

So we got a couple heavily discounted T-Shirts, after the US got eliminated.

Oh and Sunday I'll watch the final, to see a GOOD game... that's all.

So count me among the alienated. I have been for a LONG TIME. What is it? Two decades going?

[mediaman007]

2. Cheer for a college or a high school team.

[Kalun D]

3. Bad Sports

How society's "owners" invented professional sports to distract the sheeple from their ongoing a*sraping.