For fans of Michael Lewis, the astounding untold story of how professional sports transformed, in the span of a single generation, from a cottage industry into a massive global business. Players is the first book to chronicle the astonishing business story behind modern sports—a true revolution that moved the athletes from the bottom of the financial pyramid to the top.
It started in 1960, when a Cleveland lawyer named Mark McCormack convinced a golfer named Arnold Palmer to sign with him. Within a few years, McCormack raised Palmer’s annual income off the course from $5,000 to $500,000 and forever changed the landscape of the sports industry.
Futterman introduces a wide-ranging cast of characters to tell the story of athletes, agents, TV executives, coaches, and owners who together created the dominating and multifaceted industry we know today. Players is a riveting, fly-on-the-wall account of the creation and rise of the modern sports world and the people who fought to make it happen.
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“What Matthew Futterman details, and what George Newbern clearly describes, is the genesis of how money took root in the games we love. Newburn’s storytelling abilities help give an identity to the real-life characters in many athletic, marketing, and contractual endeavors. Futterman’s narrative is fascinating; it’s not bogged down in too many statistics. Newbern’s narration fits the story well—with the right amount of intonation, surprise, and inflection. Chapters include a variety of topics: Catfish Hunter’s battle over an annuity in baseball, the founding of a sports academy, and the biography of vanguard agent Mark McCormack are three of the best ones, with Newbern keeping perfect pace.”
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