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National Pastime Selected as July eBook of the Month
Boulder, COLO.—NetLibrary, in partnership with Brookings Institution Press, has selected National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer as the July eBook of the Month. A detailed and thoughtful analysis of the world's two great sports, National Pastime provides the first in-depth cross-cultural comparison of these sporting passions and the mega-businesses they have become.
Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist compare the histories, values, and traditions of baseball and soccer and show how much the traditions of each game reveal about the societies and economies that spawned them. By tracing the evolution of both sports, Szymanski and Zimbalist identify some of the problems each faces, and how each sport can look to the other for solutions.
From their common origins in cricket, the first modern team sport, baseball and soccer developed divergently. Baseball emerged in the 1850s, as an upper-middle class leisure sport, which later spread to the middle and lower-middle class. When the National League was formed in 1876, managers took control of the ballplayers' employment to produce more profitable competition. Soccer, also created by the status-conscious upper-middle class, never evolved into the purely business-oriented enterprise that was baseball. These basic opposing philosophies have affected the way each sport has grown and developed, including...
- The way players are compensated, traded, and treated. Top professional baseball players are paid significantly more than top soccer players—David Beckham's salary is about $8 million per year, while Alex Rodriguez will make about $252 million, plus bonus, for ten years.
- How stadiums for each sport have been built and maintained. Between 1989 and 2001, 16 baseball stadiums were built, thanks to government subsidies, while new soccer stadiums were rare, and many existing ones suffered from disrepair. After a number of stadium disasters, England has mandated stadium improvements and offered subsidies as well.
- The broadcasting popularity of each sport. Soccer was particularly reluctant to broadcast games, fearing it would harm ticket sales. Ultimately, TV has financially transformed both sports.
In National Pastime, Szymanski and Zimbalist focus on the ways in which the different traditions of each sport influenced their commercial organization. The authors suggest that each sport can learn from the other's successes and failures. For soccer, which is currently facing a financial crisis, a look at the business success of baseball in the U.S. could save their game, while baseball can learn from soccer about how to attract more fans in an ever-competitive environment.
National Pastime also looks at why soccer has never really taken off in the U.S. (except as a sport for children), why baseball has remained largely an American sport, and whether our isolation in sports mirrors our present political isolation. From the formation of the Knickerbockers club in 1842 and Association Football in 1863 to the modern day World Series and World Cup, Syzmanski and Zimbalist evaluate how these two sports developed separately but simultaneously, how each reflects national character and identity, and how each has maintained its foothold as a national pastime.
STEFAN SZYMANSKI, a professor of economics and strategy at Tanaka Business School, Imperial College, London, specializes in the business and economics of sports. He has consulted widely for both government and sports organizations, and is the author of Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football (Penguin 2000).
ANDREW ZIMBALIST is Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics at Smith College. He has published fifteen books and dozens of articles on sports economics and economic development. He has consulted for players' associations, teams, government bodies and international development organizations. His most recent book is May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy (Brookings 2003, paperback 2004).
To help libraries promote July's eBook of the Month to their patrons, NetLibrary has developed a tool kit of free promotional materials that includes print-on-demand bookmarks, a sample press release, and electronic support materials. More information on July's eBook of the Month is available at:
http://legacy.netlibrary.com/help/ebookofthemonth/overview.asp
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