A provocative, must-read investigation that both appreciates the importance of-and punctures the hype around-big-time contemporary American athletics
In an increasingly secular, fragmented, and distracted culture, nothing brings Americans together quite like sports. On Sundays in September, more families worship at the altar of the NFL than at any church. This appeal, which cuts across all demographic and ideological lines, makes sports perhaps the last unifying mass ritual of our era, with huge numbers of people all focused on the same thing at the same moment. That timeless, live quality-impervious to DVR, evoking ancient religious rites-makes sports very powerful, and very lucrative. And the media spectacle around them is only getting bigger, brighter, and noisier-from hot take journalism formats to the creeping infestation of advertising to social media celebrity schemes.
More importantly, sports are sold as an oasis of community to a nation deeply divided: They are escapist, apolitical, the only tie that binds. In fact, precisely because they appear allegedly "above politics," sports are able to smuggle potent messages about inequality, patriotism, labor, and race to massive audiences. And as the wider culture works through shifting gender roles and masculine power, those anxieties are also found in the experiences of female sports journalists, athletes, and fans, and through the coverage of violence by and against male bodies. Sports, rather than being the one thing everyone can agree on, perfectly encapsulate the roiling tensions of modern American life.
Michael Serazio maps and critiques the cultural production of today's lucrative, ubiquitous sports landscape. Through dozens of in-depth interviews with leaders in sports media and journalism, as well as in the business and marketing of sports, The Power of Sports goes behind the scenes and tells a story of technological disruption, commercial greed, economic disparity, military hawkishness, and ideals of manhood. In the end, despite what our myths of escapism suggest, Serazio holds up a mirror to sports and reveals the lived realities of the nation staring back at us.
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"Michael Serazio has done a remarkable analysis, and this book offers any student of American culture and sport much to contemplate...What this study offers is a full frontal examination of a multitude of areas with both a historical and contemporary focus that at times is dazzling." (New York Journal of Books) "Fun, funny, and easy to read - not all bogged down by academic or scholarly jargon." (Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture) "This is a benchmark work: a lasting and influential volume that deals with major issues cast by the sociocultural shadow of sports with a savvy and comprehensive accessibility that could change the game as we know it." - Lawrence Wenner, author of Sport, Beer, and Gender: Promotional Culture and Contemporary Social Life "In direct and engaging style, Serazio approaches the media spectacle of contemporary sports with the knowing ambivalence of the critical-but-sentimental fan, combining sharp critique and warm personal reflection. With liveliness and insight, and some smart jokes, he explores the many ways in which the sports-media nexus exercises power over identities, imaginations, politics and consumer behavior. Rooted in the American culture that first nurtured sports as a staple of modern commerce, The Power of Sports is a literary shot that will be heard around the world by readers curious to understand how sports came to be both secular religion and temple of Mammon." - David Rowe, author of Global Media Sport: Flows, Forms and Futures "Serazio digs the ball out of the dirt and fires it right on the money in this brilliant, entertaining and important analysis of the games we love that rarely love us back. A terrific book for fans and non-fans." - Robert Lipsyte, author of SportsWorld: An American Dreamland "This is a powerful, intellectual, and vital contribution to our understanding of sports and sports culture. Michael Serazio walks the line between the scholarly and the popular with uncommon dexterity" - Dave Zirin, Sports Editor, The Nation "Sharp writing, clear arguments, and impressive scope. Well worth a look." - Brett Hutchins, author of Sport Beyond Television "[Later chapters] delve into current affairs and Ivory Tower concepts that Serazio covers with ease and verve... [A] penetrating study." (Journal of American Culture) "It is to Serazio's credit that the arguments in his 2019 book about how tightly sports are interwoven with economics, politics, and culture in the United States resonate just as strongly in the era of the coronavirus disease... The breadth of examples and wealth of detail in the book are compelling. Further, The Power of Sports draws from extensive interviews with key figures in the sports media, lending to both behind-the-scenes credibility for its claims and examples for Serazio to deconstruct... The Power of Sports [is] a handy addition to a syllabus, inviting students to make connections between Serazio's claims and current events, and the book is also likely to spur on future publications about the cultural and economic power embedded in sports." (Quarterly Review of Film and Video) "Serazio's approach [is] productively interdisciplinary and as informative for those in leisure studies and sports communication as those in media studies [...] Though Serazio's work is broadly focused, it paves the way for more in-depth discussions of sports leagues' and networks' relationships with fans and spectators. The arrival of The Power of Sports to this ever-growing landscape of sports and sports media scholarship will contribute to future scholars' capacity to articulate and analyze how sports industries exercise power over the public." (The Velvet Light Trap) "Ambitious analysis of sports' role in American society and the symbiotic influence of sport and media in American culture... That Serazio draws from such a diverse and well-respected collection of scholars speaks to the ambition of the project. He is not only interested in explaining how we arrived here but reaches for the why, as well... His extensive interviews provide fascinating, if sobering, descriptions.... The Power of Sports succeeds in presenting several prominent consequences that have resulted from sports' rise to societal totem." (Communication Booknotes Quarterly) "Serazio succeeds in demonstrating the cultural, political, and gendered implications of sports in American society... Based on interviews with athletes, sports journalists, and other 'insiders' in the ever-expanding world of professional sports, Serazio's volume successfully provides an internal perspective of the interference of multiple 'powers' in American sports." (The Journal of Popular Culture) "This is a very fine book accessible to most potential adult readers... The interviews with various industry practitioners are very deeply analyzed and are a critically important and often overlooked part of academic research. As such, this is an extremely valuable book from an industrial perspective and deserving of a place on any bookshelf." (Popular Culture Studies Journal)
Michael Serazio is an award-winning former journalist who has written for The Washington Post and The Atlantic, among other outlets. He is Associate Professor of Communication at Boston College and the author of Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing (2013).
