When the Game Is On the Line: From the Man Who Brought the Heat to Miami and the Browns Back to Cleveland, An Inside Look at the High-Stakes World of Sports Deal Making

by Rick Horrow, Larry Bloom

Have you ever wondered how a monumental new sports stadium ever gets built? Why a major-league team "moves" from one city to another? How one city beats out a dozen competitors for an expansion franchise? Or what really happens behind closed doors, when billionaire team owners, cagey politicians, and pin-striped lawyers hash out the details that can make or break a city's dreams to attract or keep a team? In When the Game Is on the Line , Rick Horrow pulls back the curtain to reveal the real stories behind the biggest sports deals of the past twenty years, many of which he has brokered, to the tune of some 13 billion in infrastructure investment alone. Since his first battles, squaring off against legendary Dolphins owner Joe Robbie and a backstabbing Miami City Commission, Horrow has tangled with some of the most colorful figures in sports management and civic development, including NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and golf superstar Jack Nicklaus. The results have included new stadiums in dozens of cities (from Boston's FleetCenter to Denver's Invesco Field), off-season training facilities, league expansions-and the bragging rights to go with them. When the Game Is on the Line takes you beyond the bleachers and into the smoke-filled rooms, where big egos clash, coalitions are built, and multi-million-dollar agreements are put in play. For anyone interested in the high-octane world where sports, politics, and business meet, When the Game Is on the Line will be a must-read.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found Horrow's book interesting. He makes the case that it is important to combine various interests together in creating a package for public funding for a sports venue. However, it always appears that the other hanger-on projects and interests are just that - hangers on for the sports venue that is the primary reason for the creation of the package.

I'm a sports fan, and I like the arenas I travel to. BUT it would have been nice to read about the museum expansion that was justified to the taxpayers by bundling it with renovations to the local ballpark instead of the reverse.

I acknowledge the book was aimed at sports fans from a sports consultant. BUT, it's like reading a collection of short stories that have the same general beginning, plot, and conclusion; it'd be nice to see some variety. (Or maybe to hear about a failed project, assuming there was one. What went wrong, and how did it influence future efforts.)

note that this review is definitely colored by my having lived outside Tampa during the effort to pass a financial package to pay for the stadium. It was definitely perceived around here as "pay for the stadium, and here's some other stuff to attempt to distract you from that"; now I know where the idea came from.