The NFL started in 1920, teams came and went. That history would repeat itself in the 1930s and the 1940s. Stability finally occurred in the 1950s with the arrival of television. Television transformed North American sports. In 1950, Baseball, Boxing and Horse Racing were among the most popular sporting events in the country. Within 10 years, football, the NFL, would begin its ascent and by 1965 become the country's most popular sport.In the old days, you could find Chicago Bears o...

In 2025, college administrators and politicians tried to stop college sports from continuing its path to becoming professional sports and failed. , Major League Baseball and its players edged closer to a 2026 lockout or strike in their labor pronouncements. The National Football League continued its TV supremacy and topped off the year with the state of Kansas sending more than a billion dollars in subsidies to get Clark Hunt to move from Missouri-based football business, the Kansas City C...

In 2024, college sports turned pro, Major League Baseball did not solve its Oakland and Tampa Bay problems. The National Football League continued its TV supremacy, the National Hockey League got rid of its Phoenix problem. Women's sports enter the mainstream. of American and Canadian sports society.The root of sports success remains in getting public money, revenue from cable TV or streaming services and marketing partners. This book covers the entire spectrum of the politics and business...

The year 2022 featured an Olympics and a World Cup that were overshadowed by global events. Major League Baseball had a lockout but lost no regular season games. College sports continued to see conferences expand and college sports looked for a new boss. Professional golf sees a new men's tour begin backed by Saudi money. Major League Baseball could not solve its stadium situations in the Oakland and Tampa Bay markets. with Sports remains all about money. In the US and Canada, legalized sp...

The 2020 sports calendar was unlike any other calendar in the past century. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down not only athletic competitions but postponed an array of decisions that needed to be made by sports owners and politicians. A proposed baseball-stadium village complex on the Oakland waterfront was still on the table at the end of 2020. Halted by the pandemic. The government of Japan tightened its borders again at the end of 2020 because of a COVID-19 variation which put the reschedu...

The long time commissioner of the National Basketball Association David Stern, who ran the NBA between 1984 and 2014, once noted that there are three basic needs for a team owner and a league to be successful. Government support. A large local TV contract. Corporate support. The large TV contract in the United States was a product of the 1984 Cable TV Act and the corporate support comes from government mandated tax breaks. In 2017, all of those building blocks were in play whether it was f...

For many sports is a form of entertainment. People root for their team, although what they really are cheering is dirty laundry to use the words of the comedian Jerry Seinfeld. But sports is much more than that. Sports is powered by governments that make laws which regulate the business of sports. Most nations have Sports Ministers and sports is a government level position and concern. The e-book takes a look at the global sports industry between August 2010 and January 1, 2014. The topics...

In 2013, Basketball may or may not be the world's second most popular sport behind football (soccer) but the game's growth has exploded since the 1984 Olympics. Dr. James Naismith created the game in 1891 and while it was a popular game, the professional version of the sport did not do well. Leagues came and went. Some of the best teams in the early days didn't play in an organized league and instead barnstormed and played games wherever a promoter put down a floor and offered a few bucks ...

The Business & Politics of Sports, Second Edition by Evan Weiner.Everybody in America is paying in some way for sports, whether it is through taxes, cable TV bills, tax breaks or incentives. In a selection of his columns spanning from 1998 to the present, award winning journalist Evan Weiner connects the dots and shows how business, politics and sports are so closely interwoven.Daniel A. Rascher, Ph.D., Director of Academic Programs at the University of San Francisco, who has...

The Business & Politics of Sports contains over 100 of Evan Weiner’s columns written between 1998 and 2005 that describe the power plays, players, media and political (federal, state and local) connections, which rule the 19 billion dollar a year business of sports. At the heart of Evan Weiner’s writing lies his belief that “it’s great to watch a game and report on it, but democracy deserves more than a box score when it comes to scrutinizing the business of sports.” Mr. Weiner’s columns a...

2021: That was the year that was, it's over and time to let it go. COVID-19 interfered with sports and Omicron forced sports delays and cancellations. Major League Baseball owners locked out its players over money issues. Television money propped up sports during the pandemic and television is a sports economic driver. The Olympics continued to be a political exercise. In the US and Canada, legalized sports gambling conintued to grow. But money still flows into sports and cities are fighti...

This is another book of a series that takes a day to day look at the "Politics of Sports Business" in 2019, 365 commentaries and all of them are derived from one central thought. How sports operates with three absolute needs to be successful. Government backing. Money from television. Corporate support. It really does not matter if a sport is headquartered in the United States or in Switzerland. The 365 essays reflect that thinking. The book's cover photo is the abandoned dock in King's Wh...