Making the Majors: The Transformation of Team Sports in AmericaHarvard University Press, 2009 M06 1 - 378 páginas In this in-depth look at major league sports, Eric Leifer traces the growth and development of major leagues in baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, and predicts fundamental changes as the majors pursue international expansion. He shows how every past expansion of sports publics has been accompanied by significant changes in the way sporting competition is organized. With each reorganization, the majors have created teams closer in ability, bringing repetition to competition across time, only to expand and energize the public's search for differences between teams and for events that disrupt the repetitive flow. The phenomenal success of league sports, Leifer writes, rests on their ability to manufacture inequalities for fans to latch on to without jeopardizing the equalities that draw fans in. Leifer supports his theory with historical detail and statistical analysis. He examines the special concerns of league organizers in pursuing competitive balance and presents a detailed analysis of how large-city domination has been undermined in the modern era of Major League Baseball. Using games from the four major league sports, he then shows how fans can themselves affect the course of competition. In NFL football, for example, fans account for nearly all of the persisting inequality in team performance. The possibility of sustaining inequality among equals emerges from the cross-pressures that fans and leagues place on competition. With substantial data in hand, Leifer asks the essential question facing the leagues today: how can they sustain a situation that depends entirely on simultaneous equality and contention, one in which fan involvement may evaporate as soon as one team dominates? His answer has significant implications for the future of major league sports, both nationally and internationally. |
Dentro del libro
Resultados 1-5 de 78
Página vii
... Successful Challenge The Landis Years Overview of a Successful Prototype 4. Attachment Failures Out of Canton Into the Midwest Across the Border Failure Reconsidered ix 1 6 14 21 27 30 39 43 50 53 55 56 64 70 79 888888 80 94 98 99 109 ...
... Successful Challenge The Landis Years Overview of a Successful Prototype 4. Attachment Failures Out of Canton Into the Midwest Across the Border Failure Reconsidered ix 1 6 14 21 27 30 39 43 50 53 55 56 64 70 79 888888 80 94 98 99 109 ...
Página xii
... success here . I began to notice important differences in the way publics and sport- ing competition have been organized across sports and over time . The first professional teams were independent of leagues , and they had to keep ...
... success here . I began to notice important differences in the way publics and sport- ing competition have been organized across sports and over time . The first professional teams were independent of leagues , and they had to keep ...
Página xiii
... successes in gathering together huge international audiences , the problem of mobilizing a stable international public has not been resolved . How will competition be organized ? What new identities will emerge from the reorganization ...
... successes in gathering together huge international audiences , the problem of mobilizing a stable international public has not been resolved . How will competition be organized ? What new identities will emerge from the reorganization ...
Página 4
... successful . Major leagues have managed to accommodate losing at a time when , if anything , winning has become even more important for attracting followers . The early loyalty of fans to local teams helped teams weather losing spells ...
... successful . Major leagues have managed to accommodate losing at a time when , if anything , winning has become even more important for attracting followers . The early loyalty of fans to local teams helped teams weather losing spells ...
Página 6
... successful major leagues have become in their pursuit of sameness and repetition , the more energy publics have put into finding differences through events . Out of their involvement come the winners that publics celebrate , largely as ...
... successful major leagues have become in their pursuit of sameness and repetition , the more energy publics have put into finding differences through events . Out of their involvement come the winners that publics celebrate , largely as ...
Contenido
Reluctant Modernization | 155 |
Late Modernization | 171 |
Persisting Localism | 179 |
Where They Stand | 186 |
Changing Ways | 191 |
Deal Making in the Past | 194 |
The Meaning of Deals | 201 |
Structures of Deal Making | 207 |
64 | |
Early Challenges | 70 |
The Early Prototype | 79 |
A Successful Challenge | 80 |
The Landis Years | 88 |
Overview of a Successful Prototype | 94 |
Attachment Failures | 98 |
Out of Canton | 99 |
Into the Midwest | 109 |
Across the Border | 118 |
Failure Reconsidered | 124 |
The Modern Prototype | 126 |
Television and the NFL | 127 |
Problems Facing Rival Leagues | 135 |
Organizational Innovations | 143 |
Persisting Performance Inequality | 149 |
Modernization | 154 |
The Impact of Deal Making on Performance | 221 |
Pursuing Opportunities | 230 |
Publics and Performance | 234 |
No Place Like Home | 237 |
Game Outcomes | 249 |
Publics and Performance Inequality | 265 |
Publics in Perspective | 276 |
The Accomplishment | 281 |
Facing the Future | 287 |
A Strange New World | 294 |
The Major Leagues | 313 |
Statistics Brief | 315 |
League Statistics | 323 |
Notes | 337 |
References | 361 |
Index | 373 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Making the Majors: The Transformation of Team Sports in America Eric Matheson Leifer Vista de fragmentos - 1995 |
Making the Majors: The Transformation of Team Sports in America Eric M. Leifer Sin vista previa disponible - 1995 |
Términos y frases comunes
amateur American Basketball League American Football American League Athletic attach teams attached to cities attachment of teams audience ball baseball owners baseball's became broadcasts challenge championship Chicago Cincinnati clubs commissioner competitive balance crowd density cultivating demographics draft fans Figure Football League franchises free agents gate receipts hence home advantage home team impact independent teams international publics involvement Landis large-city dominance large-city teams League's Major League Baseball major league sports major league teams million minor modern prototype moved National Association National Basketball League National Football League National League national publics NFL's number of games opportunities overall partisan effect pennant races percent performance inequality performance levels Players League population bases professional teams Red Stockings regular season reserve clause rival league Rozelle salaries scheduling season performance small-city teams smaller-city teams stadium success talent teams played teams to cities trade travel distances winners and losers World Football League York Yankees
Pasajes populares
Página 41 - I want you to develop teams which we can send around the country and knock out all the colleges.
Página 89 - Both sides must understand that any blows at the thing called baseball would be regarded by this court as a blow to a national institution."3 That being said, Lee Magee (Leopold Hoernschmeyer), who had played for the St.
Página 312 - It is calculated as the square root of the average squared deviation from the mean.
Página 22 - In times of high demand, ie during those hours of the day, days of the week and weeks of the year...
Página 39 - You have done more," he said, "to make Columbia known than all your predecessors because little was known about Columbia one month ago but today wherever the telegraph cable extends, the existence of Columbia College is known and respected
Página 134 - Walk down any street in America and observe the diversity of team logos on caps, tshirts, and bumper stickers. Fans for any team can turn up anywhere, and they contribute to the support of "their" teams not just by purchasing team paraphernalia but by uniting in front of the television.
Página 338 - Heretofore Base Ball Clubs had won and lost games, matches, tournaments, trophies. Henceforth this would be changed. The function of Base Ball Clubs in the future would be to manage Base Ball Teams. Clubs would form leagues, secure grounds, erect grandstands, lease and own property, make schedules, fix dates, pay salaries, assess fines, discipline players, make contracts, control the sport in all its relations to the public...
Página 11 - Competitive balance yields winners and losers in both games and seasons, but it keeps open the chance that winners will lose and losers will win in subsequent competition. This helps undermine the significance of past winning and losing by arousing public interest in upcoming competition, no matter what has happened in the past.
Página 31 - One reporter complained acidly that the crowd seemed to think that games were got up for their special entertainment and that they were conferring a favor on the players by their presence.