National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer
Автор:Stefan Szymanski, Andrew Zimbalist Год: 2005 Издание: [не указанo] Страниц: 263 ISBN: 0815782586 National cultures are built around national pastimes. How we play helps define who we think we are. This is the story of two great sports?America's game, and the world's game. Baseball is America's game, a national obsession that remains largely North American, even though it bills its championship as the World Series. Soccer is the world's game, a sport over which no nation can claim ownership. Its World Cup is truly international and the ultimate yardstick of national self-esteem. National Pastime is the first in-depth cross-cultural comparison of these sporting passions and the mega-businesses they have become. In National Pastime, Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist examine how organizational structures have made Major League Baseball a profitable business (notwithstanding common claims made by the owners) while soccer leagues around the world struggle to break even. They weave a rich variety of stories, anecdotes, and photos into their account of how these...
