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The Franchise
A story of professional football as both a sport and a business details the life of quarterback Taylor Rusk and his teammates on the Texas Pistols
Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 1983
19 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Peter Gent
10 books8 followersGeorge Davis Peter Gent was a Michigan State University basketball player and National Football League wide receiver turned novelist.
After leaving professional football, Gent wrote several novels dealing with the sport. His first and most famous book, a semi-autobiographical novel entitled North Dallas Forty, was published in 1973. Its main characters, a quarterback and a wide receiver, are widely considered to be based on Don Meredith and Gent, respectively. The novel was one of the first to examine the NFL's hypocrisy regarding drug use.
Gent made his home in Texas for many years, where he was friends with many of that state's significant creative minds of the day, including Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Bud Shrake, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Dan Jenkins. They called themselves the Mad Dogs.
Gent also explored the corruption in modern professional sports in a sequel volume entitled "North Dallas After 40", published in 1989, and in two unrelated football novels — "Texas Celebrity Turkey Trot" (1979) and "The Franchise" (1983).
Gent also wrote a novel about college basketball entitled " The Conquering Heroes" (1994). Bill Walton’s cover blurb states that the book is the "North Dallas Forty of college basketball. But it’s much more, it’s about a whole generation of kids who came of age in an America that I grew up in."
Gent resided in Bangor, Michigan at the time of his death from a pulmonary disease on September 30, 2011,and was working on a novel.
After leaving professional football, Gent wrote several novels dealing with the sport. His first and most famous book, a semi-autobiographical novel entitled North Dallas Forty, was published in 1973. Its main characters, a quarterback and a wide receiver, are widely considered to be based on Don Meredith and Gent, respectively. The novel was one of the first to examine the NFL's hypocrisy regarding drug use.
Gent made his home in Texas for many years, where he was friends with many of that state's significant creative minds of the day, including Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Bud Shrake, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Dan Jenkins. They called themselves the Mad Dogs.
Gent also explored the corruption in modern professional sports in a sequel volume entitled "North Dallas After 40", published in 1989, and in two unrelated football novels — "Texas Celebrity Turkey Trot" (1979) and "The Franchise" (1983).
Gent also wrote a novel about college basketball entitled " The Conquering Heroes" (1994). Bill Walton’s cover blurb states that the book is the "North Dallas Forty of college basketball. But it’s much more, it’s about a whole generation of kids who came of age in an America that I grew up in."
Gent resided in Bangor, Michigan at the time of his death from a pulmonary disease on September 30, 2011,and was working on a novel.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 15, 2011
Not as well known as Gent’s North Dallas Forty but a superior book all the same and one that I read every few years. Taylor Rusk, the protagonist, is the franchise, Achilles in cleats.
This story follows his path to greatness from high school through college and into the pros. Along the way we confront torture, death by Heisman trophy, Ox, Russian steroids, roller skating car hops, onion eating, tracheostomy by Bic pen, mobsters, owners, mobster owners, dog training and creative uses for a tube of toothpaste and string of pearls.
Entertaining to the end.
This story follows his path to greatness from high school through college and into the pros. Along the way we confront torture, death by Heisman trophy, Ox, Russian steroids, roller skating car hops, onion eating, tracheostomy by Bic pen, mobsters, owners, mobster owners, dog training and creative uses for a tube of toothpaste and string of pearls.
Entertaining to the end.
September 18, 2007
Peter Gent is best known as the author of North Dallas Forty, but in 1983 he wrote another football novel, the completely demented The Franchise. According to Texas Literary Outlaws, this book was written during a period in Gent’s life when he was exhibiting some scarily paranoid behavior. This comes through loud and clear in The Franchise, which is a conspiracy-filled history of a new expansion team, located in the never-named city of Austin. The franchise brings in the coach and quarterback from U.T. (also never named) and starts towards their plan of building a Super Bowl team in three years. At first, the primary villain (among many) of the piece is Dick Conly, right-hand man to owner Cyrus Chandler. Conly is an amoral schemer who knows he’s smarter than everyone else. While he never really becomes a “good guy,” his alliance strategically changes to the good guys later on in the novel. Conly gets most of the best lines. For example:
“It’s about goddam time.” Conly lurched out of the chair and snatched up the crocodile briefcase. “Does the son of a bitch want to take a goddam bribe or not? I have important people to corrupt.”
The book is full of funny, awful, corruption like this. It’s amazingly bloodsoaked--James Elroy would envy the body count--and each outrage is certain to be topped by a later outrage. One can’t call it satirical because the picture it paints of the NFL is not remotely believable. But The Franchise is funny, twisted, and entertaining. It reminds me a little of Carl Hiaasen, but even more extreme. It wasn’t as good as North Dallas Forty, but still quite readable.
“It’s about goddam time.” Conly lurched out of the chair and snatched up the crocodile briefcase. “Does the son of a bitch want to take a goddam bribe or not? I have important people to corrupt.”
The book is full of funny, awful, corruption like this. It’s amazingly bloodsoaked--James Elroy would envy the body count--and each outrage is certain to be topped by a later outrage. One can’t call it satirical because the picture it paints of the NFL is not remotely believable. But The Franchise is funny, twisted, and entertaining. It reminds me a little of Carl Hiaasen, but even more extreme. It wasn’t as good as North Dallas Forty, but still quite readable.
May 2, 2012
Having read several of Peter Gent's previous works judging by the cover, I assumed that this would be a story about football. Well , you can't judge a book by its cover. (Did somebody say that once?) Although, this book revolves around the front office and star quarterback of an expansion football team, there really is very little football going on. Instead, we are presented with some of the seedy side of a professional sports team with everything from point shaving to murder. Not an uninteresting read but it does get slow in the middle. The last section really picks it up and makes the read rewarding overall. Not as good as North Dallas Forty or The Conquering Heroes but certainly better than North Dallas After Forty. (originally posted on Amazon.com)
February 23, 2015
This book has something for everybody! It is written in the setting of professional football, by Peter Gent former Dallas Cowboys player and author of North Dallas Forty. Humor, romance, football, philosophy, organized crime, murder--I just can't believe how Gent managed to weave all this together into a coherent tale.
December 30, 2023
I enjoy sports fiction and was more than interested in reading a Peter Gent book. I've seen a little of North Dallas Forty (the movie) and was intrigued by what it could be. I found a used copy online of this book and went for it. I started it in December, at the height of the NFL season, and it delivered!
Dark, fast action, but with great quotes and interesting perspectives on life, I very much enjoyed this Any Given Sunday meets John Grisham-type novel.
It follows Taylor Rusk, a blue-chip or generational QB talent (calling himself The Franchise) as he transitions from college to the NFL, where he learns the ropes of professional football with the fictitious team the Texas Pistols. Unimaginable twists and turns include drug addiction, money laundering, point shaving, an offensive lineman named Ox, rich owners with too much time and several murders by different means including handing, molotov cocktail and many different guns.
It won't be my last Peter Gent. I am happy to say that I am passing it on to a football buddy of mine as a dark, nasty, and interesting read.
Dark, fast action, but with great quotes and interesting perspectives on life, I very much enjoyed this Any Given Sunday meets John Grisham-type novel.
It follows Taylor Rusk, a blue-chip or generational QB talent (calling himself The Franchise) as he transitions from college to the NFL, where he learns the ropes of professional football with the fictitious team the Texas Pistols. Unimaginable twists and turns include drug addiction, money laundering, point shaving, an offensive lineman named Ox, rich owners with too much time and several murders by different means including handing, molotov cocktail and many different guns.
It won't be my last Peter Gent. I am happy to say that I am passing it on to a football buddy of mine as a dark, nasty, and interesting read.
June 27, 2019
I really liked parts of this book. However, it basically becomes a book by Ayn Rand but also about football. The main character who is the hero because he's less terrible than the other characters is himself very one dimensional and terrible. I would recommend it because it is so different than what the reader (and probably even the author) would expect this book to be, but it's a bad book by any objective standard.
September 14, 2021
Unlike North Dallas Forty, this one's an unconvincing mess. It's deeply, deeply cynical but its black humor isn't funny enough. Then there's the unnecessary gangster-thriller violence, unrealistic though Texas-fantastic football, awful love story, and the fact our hero's a selfish, sexist jerk. Gent has a point to make, but he must have been really burned by the NFL. (BTW, this is a re-read; I thought it was weird when I read it when it came out in '83 - it didn't improve with age).
June 30, 2022
North Dallas 40 was thematically compact it existed over 8 fictional days and it stuck tightly to a base of knowledge. North Dallas after 40 likewise for Cowboys fans there is humor. This has its moments but there are too many stretches where Gent goes into areas (aviation) he does not know much about things get bad fast and the book covers too long of a period of time.
June 5, 2020
A wonderfully crafted satire from beginning to end. Even though it was written in the 70's, you could add a couple 0's to the figures and some of it would ring true.
September 11, 2020
Read in 1984. A corrupt football team fights to v=become the sports dominant franchise. Demented, funny and profane. One of my favorites that year.
October 16, 2015
Another true-to-life novel about the sports world by the best sports novelist. This traces a top-flight quarterback from his college beginnings and the hypocrisies of the sport and college life and his efforts to stay above it all as he continues into the pros, searching for 'the ring', one thing a player will give a finger or two to get before they retire or are forced to retire.
Not as good as the classic "North Dallas Forty" but it's close and has a different flavor and tenor. It makes for enjoyable and an impressive change of style for a genre that has a difficult time finding a different style and feel among different authors let alone among books from a single author. Definitely shows Gent's top of the rung status as a sports novelist.
Perfect for the sports fan, football fan, and fans of very good novels.
Not as good as the classic "North Dallas Forty" but it's close and has a different flavor and tenor. It makes for enjoyable and an impressive change of style for a genre that has a difficult time finding a different style and feel among different authors let alone among books from a single author. Definitely shows Gent's top of the rung status as a sports novelist.
Perfect for the sports fan, football fan, and fans of very good novels.
October 20, 2007
Pete Gent played football for the Dallas Cowboys back in the sixties. When his playing days were over he wrote North Dallas Forty, a good, funny, but essentially very dark novel. The ending is particularly bleak. The Franchise (also about football in Texas) is much longer and just loaded with very well drawn, memorable characters. It is dark--there are some sick evil folks in this book-- but not bleak. And it is so, so funny. Even if you don't like football or Texas, ya gotta read it.
January 8, 2016
A long and expansive novel that is near brilliant in its depiction of professional football. To me, not as enjoyable as North Dallas Forty. The pseudo-mystery aspect of the story was a bit much and bored me in stretches, but the characterization of a corporate league that chews up and spits out its players was spot on.
February 8, 2015
Very dark and entertaining. Every negative stereotype about professional football, on and off the field, happens to the Texas Pistols franchise. Full review can be read here:
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...
August 10, 2011
I find it funny that the female protagonist in this book has the same last name as my name. Coincidence? Irony?
March 31, 2015
Moderately entertaining, if a bit fantastical. I found myself shaking my head in disbelief at some of the action in this novel...
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May 30, 2012everything you suspected about major league football is true, says PG, and BM wonders how does such brilliance and amazing athletic achievement come out of such a swamp?
February 6, 2019
If you still believe in the NFL, don't read this book.
If you want to know what really goes on in the most popular (and best fixed) business in the world... read on. Peter Gent weaves a great tale of greed, intelligence, stupidity, cupidity, and revenge.
If you want to know what really goes on in the most popular (and best fixed) business in the world... read on. Peter Gent weaves a great tale of greed, intelligence, stupidity, cupidity, and revenge.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews