(Part 2) Best sports industry books according to redditors

Didn't Pat Riley say he was unaware they had planned that, and he thought it was a bad idea?

edit: I think it was in either The Soul of Basketball by Ian Thomsen or Return of the King by Brian Windhorst. I don't own either book, anyone interested in checking?

There's a horrible misconception that Tommy John surgery resets the odometer on your UCL, or even makes it stronger. Because of this a few misinformed people believe having it done on a high school or college pitcher will get it out of the way before they get into their college/professional years, and send them into those prime developmental and earning seasons at a lower risk of needing Tommy John. This isn't true.

The UCL connects the upper and lower parts of the arm at the elbow. The most common version of the surgery involves taking a tendon from elsewhere in the body (often the leg), or a cadaver, and replacing the frayed or torn UCL in the elbow. New holes have to be drilled into the humerus (upper arm) and ulna (lower arm) bones for the replacement tendon to be attached. There's a nerve in there too that has to be carefully moved so it doesn't bump up against scar tissue that will form and cause extreme pain.

While the success rate has improved from the early days of the surgery, it still isn't 100%. When "full" recovery happens, it still takes over a year from the time of the surgery for baseball pitchers. Still: The donor tendon isn't as strong as the original, and the bone isn't as strong where you had to drill more holes into it to accommodate the replacement ligament. Many pitchers don't come back with full arm strength, and the increasing prevalence in baseball over the past 10-20 years has taught us that the risk of reinjury is higher once you've gone under the knife a first time. Think ACLs in football.

Bottom line: You never want to have Tommy John surgery. And doctors who would perform it electively on children should be sued for malpractice.

(My knowledge of this comes from Jeff Passan's excellent book The Arm)

Death of the Territories: Expansion, Betrayal and the War that Changed Pro Wrestling Forever by Tim Hornbaker

Easily one of the best wrestling historians around and all of his books are amazing reads. The book came out nack in september and is probably the best place to get a detailed and unbiased look at what happened.

I'll also suggest Inverting the Pyramid and Soccernomics. Both are good reads.

The Secret Footballer's books are light and fun, if a little repetitive and a bit of a tease. I've found that he's always suggesting that he's going to reveal more than he ends up revealing, especially in the more recent books.

Das Reboot covers the recent history of German football and has some interesting stuff about Klopp in it.

And The Sun Shines Now is an excellent dive into the changes in English football post-Hillsborough, including looks at the media landscape and some investigation of German football as an alternative model for how clubs could be structured and relate to their supporters. It's a bit dry sometimes, but it's very, very good.

Far Foreign Land is about the 2005 Champions League final (and getting there), but it also covers Rome, Heysel, and Hillsborough. I think the long form really suits Tony Evans's writing style.

If you like oral history, check out Simon Hughes's books. I've only read Ring of Fire and Red Machine, but some of the interviews are top notch. Personally, I found the less famous players were usually more interesting than the more famous players.

Red Men is a stellar history of the club, particularly if you want to get familiar with LFC before Shankly.

Finally, if you like Inverting the Pyramid, you might find Talking Tactics interesting, too. I really liked it, but I'm not entirely sure that I got as much out of it as others might — it's kind of dense and dry.

One of these days I'm going to write a book about starting a fencing club, but until I do, this book is an excellent reference:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007OVT7W0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Buy it and read it. Read it twice. Don't pass over any of the information in it, including the information about finding customers and placing your club.

I'll repeat some previous advice: get it out of your head that you are starting a "fencing club". You are starting a small business, with everything that entails. You have a lot of questions to answer and a lot of information to get that has nothing to do with fencing before you open your doors (for example, what does your service fall under in your tax jurisdiction? Is it subject to a sales tax? These question can be important).

Your competition isn't other fencing clubs, it's the other services and business that cater to your demographic: martial arts schools, dance programs, and such. Play the "potential customer" and go talk to the businesses like this in your area. Not only see what they charge and how they structure things for their service, but see how you're treated, how you're approached, what their facilities look like, and know that this is the level of service you have to provide.

Have a very firm idea of what sort of club you want to be, and understand that most clubs can't be all things to all people, unless you're in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes not even then. Understand that your coaching decisions ("We're going to teach all three weapons") are going to impact your business decisions ("There are going to be nights when a customer might show up and have no one to fence in their weapon") and vica-versa.

Location, location, location is more than just a funny joke, it can have a real impact on your bottom line. A few years ago, a wonderful club opened in my area. It was well appointed, had a skilled coaching staff, and looked ready to be a successful business. Unfortunately, it was no where near the demographic they hoped to serve, and getting there at peak "after school times" was a traffic nightmare. They found it difficult to keep the doors open and eventually folded. There are going to be enough challenges to running a club without making life unduly difficult on yourself through poor planning.

All this sounds a little scary, and it should. Starting a business is a big leap, but I'll offer this reassurance: the market for fencing clubs isn't close to being saturated in any part of the country (and that includes NJ and other powerhouse fencing areas). If you are thoughtful, and honest, and willing to put in a year of hard work, you should have a successful club.

Best of luck.

Assuming that you're American.

Here's what you want to start with:

• Inverting the Pyramid, by Jonathan Wilson. This is an essential volume that goes over the evolution of football tactics in a way that anybody can understand. It also describes the best footballers of different eras and explains why they were so exceptional based on how they played the game rather than on their statistics. That is: a player like Puskas wasn't great because he scored loads of goals as a number-10. Rather, Puskas redefined what a number-10 is, and what that role does. An absolute must-read.
  
  
• Soccernomics by Simon Kuper. This is basically behavioral economics (think Freakonomics) applied to football. Looks at questions like: Is home-field advantage a thing, and how does it work? Why are penalty kicks a perfect example of real-world game-theory? And do England really underperform? Fascinating stuff, even though I don't buy it all completely.
  
  
• Distant Corners, and Soccer in a Football World, by David Wangerin. These are companion volumes that form the definitive history of the sport in the US, which is a lot older and a lot crazier than you think.
  
  
• Soccer in Sun and Shadow, by Eduardo Galeano. This is the sort of book you'll read cover to cover in one or two sittings, then leave in your bathroom, because you can flip to any page and read simply magical ruminations on the game. Even in the English translation (Galeano was a renowned Uruguayan journalist and novelist who wrote in Spanish), the short reflections out of which this book is built will give you shivers.
  
  
• Scorecasting, by L. Jon Wertheim and Tobias Moskowitz. This isn't really about association football, but rather more behavioral economics applied to sports in general. It will change your mind about a lot of the accepted "wisdom" that exists in all sports. Should you go for it on fourth down? (In many cases, yes.) Should you save your "closer" for the ninth inning? (Probably not.) If a player has sunk three three-pointers in a row, he's hot and I should get him the ball for another three-pointer, right? (Not according to the data.^* ) A great read.
  
  
  
  

Lots of what you want to think about is not fencing specific. Someone, I don't remember who, recommended this to me a couple of years ago:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804834288/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Little bit out of date in some areas like advertising, perhaps, but lots of decent practical advice.

I completely agree with this, especially the last paragraph.

I highly recommend John Helyar's Lords of the Realm to anyone who wants to take a deep dive into the history of baseball, specifically the business side of things. It gives an in depth account of the birth of free agency and the role Marvin Miller played in it.

https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Realm-Real-History-Baseball/dp/0345465245/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=Lord%27s+of+the+realm&qid=1574294896&sr=8-3

I'm going to recommend a handful of books for you.

• Take Your Eye Off the Ball, by Pat Kirwan, is about how to watch the game to get the most out of what's going on. It teaches more about tactics (individual player-on-player interactions) than strategy (game plans) although it does get into how to diagnose the offense & defense "looks" to guess run or pass. You're going to see a lot of other recommendations for this book in this thread, and while I love Chris Brown's book (next on my list), if you can buy only one book, it's this one.
  
• The Art of Smart Football is a great book about strategy that doesn't get much into tactics. Chris Brown wrote for GRANTLAND when they were still publishing and his writings on the subject between 2005-2012 were some of the most insightful looks at the game back when coaches were still universally afraid to go for it on 4th down. Peter King (SI) and Bill Barnwell both recommend it as a must-read.
  
• The Games that Changed the Game is a history book, examining seven historical games and how they've influenced the game as a whole - the framework within which strategy and tactics are considered reasonable. One of the games, just to give an example, is the Super Bowl where Belichick beat the Rams by game-planning to take away Marshall Faulk.
  
• Football Scouting Methods is less important to read, and in many ways it has been superseded by Pat Kirwan's book (the first on this list) but it was written by Bill Belichick's father when he was a DC at the Naval Academy. It talks about how to observe an opponent's game and plan to defeat him, and a lot of the commentary still holds up today. It's an interesting historical text, but not really relevant to today's game -- except that everyone who is a head coach today probably read it cover to cover back when they were getting started in the league.
  
  I'm also going to say that Moneyball is a great sports book and can really contribute to your understanding of how today's analytics-focused front offices are starting to do things differently. So when you see an FO hoarding picks and refusing to overpay for talent in free agency, if you've read Moneyball it will make perfect sense to you.
  
  Lastly, I'm going to say that most player autobiographies are not worth reading, and "NFL Unplugged", a memoir by a referee, is definitely not worth buying. They're usually full of name-dropping and war stories, which is fun, but they rarely give you any insight into how the game is played.
  

For anyone who's looking for a new basketball book to read, check out Ian Thomsen's new one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0547746512/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zj33AbY9NNTX6

I'm halfway through it and it's great. It's about the 2010-11 season. It's centered around LeBron & the Decision, which has been written about to death but there's a lot of great anecdotes and interviews that I haven't read anywhere else. It also goes deep on the Big 3 Celtics, Kobe, the Mavs, and Dirk.

That's a broad topic. Let's see:

• Recent, still relevant baseball: The Arm by Jeff Passan. One of the best sportswriters today goes way in-depth to what's going on with pitching injuries. Fascinating read.
  
  
• Historical / Classic Reads: Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers in Jackie's day. Kahn's a wonderful storyteller.
  
  
• Weird, but wonderful: Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, about the fictional Patriot League. One of these days, I want to run an OOTP sim of the league and see what happens. Completely out there, but I loved it.
  
  
• Edit: Almost forgot! The Kid Who Only Hit Homers, by Matt Christopher. First baseball book I ever read.

Anyone who may have must definitely read An Epic Swindle.

Think you're referring to Malinowski's Betaball. He wrote/writes for Bleacher Report and occasionally does podcasts:

https://www.amazon.com/Betaball-Silicon-Science-Greatest-Basketball/dp/1501158198

Slated to be out in early October, so he's been heavily promoting it on social media

This book will be worth reading when it drops in a month.

link for the lazy

http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Perfection-Behind-Scenes-High-Stakes/dp/0306824027

http://www.amazon.com/Arm-Billion-Dollar-Mystery-Valuable-Commodity/dp/0062400363/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458068653&sr=1-1&keywords=jeff+passan

ok

If you haven't, you should read Lords of the Realm by John Helyar.

It is sort of a "workers' history of MLB" told from the oppressed labor perspective. Goes into great detail about the expansion efforts of MLB and specifically how the owners colluded to keep good players out of the hands of expansion clubs, so that the Angels, Royals, Mets and Colts were forced to pick through dregs and near-retirees.

There are some interesting sociological points that can be made about professional sports and the legacy of slavery in the US. The phrase "Well-Paid Slave" exists for a reason. There's a massive imbalance in power in collective bargaining, and it's worse in football than in the rest of the "Big Four" in the US, in part because the careers are so short.

Your friend missed all of that though, because he's not very well informed on sports economics or sociology.

For people interested, there is an excellent book called "Bulls Markets" which is an insane in-depth look at all aspects of how the United Center came to be in the 1990s. The United Center set the bar for how owners should pay for their stadium and support their community but when you actually look at the deal you realize that Chicago was fucked from the get go.

https://www.amazon.com/Bulls-Markets-Basketball-Inequality-Historical-ebook/dp/B07H9G4W9F

Chasing Perfection by Andy Glockner seems really good, and fits your description. Haven't read it but the author is really smart about basketball on Twitter.

https://www.amazon.com/Game-Inside-Secret-Baseballs-Brokers/dp/B01LTHXJC8

Fantastic book

I picked up a great book for a buck at a university book sale:

The Billion Dollar Game

Really takes you behind the scenes of the business of the NFL (in an interesting way, not a muck-raking way).

It's shocking, but once upon a time, sports announcers used to fill pregame time with talk about the upcoming game, and not Player X's relationship with his estranged father. The camera didn't take shots of the crowd, or the surrounding area.

Then the Sabols realized, while working a small college game, that for everyone but the most diehard fan that shit gets boring after about 20 minutes. So they started getting people to talk about how much Town X loved Team Y, and why, and the history of Team Y in Town X.

Basically, they convinced Joe Average why he should give a shit what happens in today's game. You could argue this one decision made the NFL as popular as it is, and changed the face of every sporting event broadcast in history since then.

Lords of the realm

I forgot, but just in case you didn't see it in the other thread, Starting and Running Your Own Martial Arts School by Karen Vactor and Susan Peterson. It covers the basics of running a small business, framed through the lens of a martial arts instructor. It's a super helpful book, I've re-read it multiple times.

>TL:DR - The Cards model worked for 15 years, but it's time for a change, as seen both within the organization and through other Blue Chip organizations.

1. The times have changed.
   I get that in the mid 00's development was a much different process, and it was run well by guys from the Matheny-era who took a traditional approach. Saber wasnt widespread, advance video, scouting and technology was not to the point where it could contend with reps
   
   If you haven't you should check out The Cardinals Way by Howard Megdal. The team was innovative in a lot of ways in regards to the use of sabrmetrics and development in the mid-'00s. Also, there has been a lot of change in those departments since then, unfortunately a lot of that has been because of "brain drain" with guys like Luhnow, Mejdal, Kantrovitz, etc leaving the org.

I'd start by watching Ken Burns Baseball documentary.

​

As far as books, Moneyball is good, and The Only Rule is it Has to Work for an in depth look at how stats affect the game.

It was the Reserve Clause as in the Owners Reserved the right to renew a players contract indefinitely.

Not the Reverse Clause.

Flood was a fascinating man, if you want to learn more there is a great book called A Well Paid Slave about him.

The Steven Gerrard autobiography won most of the annual sports book awards when it was released and it has always received good reviews. It is unlike most of the other player biographies. I have a copy but have yet to read it. It was ghost written by Henry Winter.

Epic Swindle: 44 months with a pair of cowboys is a biography of Liverpool under Hicks and Gillett and provides a good insight into how clubs are run and the problems that can be caused by large debt loads from leveraged-buyouts.

For non-football, Open by Andre Agassi was excellent. I read straight through it in a couple of sittings.

Have read quite a bit of excellent nonfiction, but would recommend anything by Michael Lewis, such as The Big Short, Moneyball, Boomerang.

The Billion Dollar Game - Allen St. John

A great inside look at how a Super Bowl is put together. A little brief, but really makes you appreciate just how much work it takes for Super Sunday to be so Super.

This book covers the stuff that lead up to the creation of the NWA and the first decade or two of the NWA monopoly.

This covers the peak years and the death of the territories.

Read BetaBall - it's fully explained.