Michael MacCambridge

MacCambridge has written an outstanding history of modern professional football known as the National Football League. The primary theme of the book is how football has eclipsed other sports, specifically baseball, to become America's game.

The book starts out with the Baltimore Colts defeat in overtime of the New York Giants on December 28, 1958 in the National Football League championship game. The game was televised and is called the Greatest Game Ever Played, partially because it catapulted the NFL into the national spotlight and sent the league on its way to be the dominant sport in American culture.

For the most part this is a very linear history of the Nation Football League, and a very well done one. While it is about the game itself, it's more about the business of professional football and the importance of decisions made by those who ran it leading to a thriving game and a thriving business enterprise. Much is discussed about the first commissioner Bert Bell who held a motley collection of owners together and strived for parity in the league, and Pete Rozelle who help reap millions in television revenue, fostered the revenue sharing agreement between big market and small market teams keeping competitive balance, and maintaining relative labor peace compared to other sports.

Another very interesting and pivotal part of NFL history was its competition with the American Football League in the 1960's and how a group of maverick owners created a rival, viable league of its own and how the eventual merger of the NFL and AFL came about. Interestingly, Lamar Hunt, late owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, was the pivotal figure in both the creation of the AFL and the eventual merger. The merger, in fact, made the NFL even stronger.

There are a few key themes in this book about why professional football became the dominant sport it is today. First, and foremost, is television. The game of football, more so than baseball, is a sport made for television. Television thrust the game into the national spotlight and keeps it there. Second is parity. While there have been some dominant teams in the league and a few dynasties, the revenue sharing, scheduling, and now salary caps which keep the teams on a somewhat even playing field has helped maintain interest in the game. Third, labor peace, relative to other sports, has also helped the game thrive. And finally, the owners and commissioners who have lead the league have been visionary. In these pages you meet the legendary coaches and owners like George Halas, Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi, Wellington Mara, Art Modell, Art Rooney, and others who made the NFL what it is today.

Overall, this is an outstanding history of the modern NFL and I highly recommend it.
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This was the best book I read in 2006. It was one of the few non-fiction books that I just could not put down. Not only is it well researched but the way that McCambridge has weaved together each tale to make up the larger story of the NFL is amazing. Unless you live under a rock, you know what a huge part professional football plays in our society and this book tells you exactly how and why it came to be this way. I came away with a very good sense of what each league commissioner brought to the organization, as well as the history of many of the franchises that remain today. I recommend this to anyone that has even a slight interest in the NFL.… (more)

I really enjoyed this fabulous book. It makes the story of the NFL come alive, particularly through the period of the 50's, 60's and early 70's. I found the later chapters a little more episodic, but I think the author does a tremendous job of dealing with infromation about key games, key characters and wider trends in the sport and business of the NFL. For a work founded on comprehensive research and academic attention to detail and sources it is incredibly readable.

Reading it from the perspective of an Englishman I did find a couple of sentences slightly bizarre - do you American's really talk about teams having 'losingest' runs? Although I can see the logic of a team that is hard to 'defense' against... I loved these little quirks (if in-fact they are quirks and not just my cultural ignorance!) and really appreciated the direct yet never dull writing. The wider socio-economic musing and cultural commentary was welcome and stimulating. However, again - from the English perspective - I did find the fervour of the claims and juxtapositions vis-a-vis Baseball slightly heavy-handed. This may again be due to my ignorance of the importance of Baseball to everyday Americans before the rise of American Football.

I would recommend this book heartily to any fan of sports writing.… (more)