{"product_id":"players-2","title":"Players: How Sports Became a Business","description":"\u003cb\u003e“Provocative…terrific stories” (\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e) of the people who transformed sports—in the span of a single generation—from a job that required even top athletes to work in the off-season to make ends meet into a massive global business.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt started, as most business deals do, with a handshake. In 1960, a Cleveland lawyer named Mark McCormack convinced a golfer named Arnold Palmer to sign with him. McCormack simply believed that the best athletes had more commercial value than they were being paid for—and he was right. Within a few years, he raised Palmer’s annual income from $5,000 to $500,000, and forever changed the landscape of the sports industry, transforming it from a form of entertainment to a profitable and fully functioning system of its own.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A remarkable saga…filled with insights not only into sports, but also into human nature” (\u003ci\u003eThe Dallas Morning News\u003c\/i\u003e), \u003ci\u003ePlayers \u003c\/i\u003efeatures landmark moments, including the multiyear battle to free Palmer from a bad deal with the Wilson Sporting Goods Company; the 1973 Wimbledon boycott, when eighty-one of the top tennis players in the world protested the suspension of Nikola Pilic; baseball pitcher Catfish Hunter’s battle to become MLB’s first free agent; and how NFL executives transformed pro football from a commercial dud to the greatest show on earth.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“An entertaining, illuminating read” (\u003ci\u003eNew York Journal of Books\u003c\/i\u003e), \u003ci\u003ePlayers \u003c\/i\u003eis a riveting, fly-on-the-wall account of the rise and creation of the modern sports world, and the people who made it happen. “No part of the media and entertainment industry has seen a more substantial economic transformation than sports….A half-century tour spanning a variety of widely recognized and lesser-known sports figures and competitions that have played roles in the industry’s development….\u003ci\u003ePlayers\u003c\/i\u003e could not be more timely” (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e).","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Couverture souple","offer_id":46225313595602,"sku":"9781476716961","price":25.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Livre numérique Kobo","offer_id":46225313628370,"sku":"48f4efdd-a1d3-3fe2-b9d6-919831334c3d","price":14.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_64ae74ec-d143-43a9-a338-c29e4a6f4ba7.jpg?v=1763192838","url":"https:\/\/www.indigo.ca\/fr\/products\/players-2","provider":"Indigo","version":"1.0","type":"link"}