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6 new sports books for good holiday reading

Here are excerpts from six new sports books.

6. 'Rozelle: A Biography,' by Jerry Izenberg

  • By Ross Atkin

Despite his reluctance to become commissioner of the National Football League, Pete Rozelle guided the league to spectacular heights upon taking the job in 1960 at the dawn of the TV era.

“As a visionary Rozelle surpassed P.T. Barnum, but unlike Barnum he always sold reality, not illusion. He looked at the haphazard business model with which the league’s individual owners had sold their television rights. Each team controlled its own destiny in that area. None of them knew what their rights were worth, and a few of them couldn’t even sell them. Who, for example, would put up big money to televise the Green Bay Packers with their tiny stadium and their limited television territory?

“He conceived of a package where everyone would make money; everyone would sell their games, because everyone would sell out of the same store to the same retailer. As always marked his style, he knew how to identify and recruit just the key allies to serve as the point men to make it possible. The men he needed to sell the other owners on the plan were Jack Mara and Wellington Mara, who owned and ran the New York Football Giants.”

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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