The Arena: Inside the Tailgating, Ticket-Scalping, Mascot-Racing, Dubiously Funded, and Possibly Haunted Monuments of American Sport

by Rafi Kohan

Finalist • PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing “An inventive, fast-paced look at what have become our modern shrines in a sports-obsessed society.” ―Tom Verducci In this “addictive” ( Publishers Weekly ) romp, intrepid sportswriter Rafi Kohan finagles access to our most beloved fields to find out just what makes them from old-timer Wrigley, creakily adjusting to the twenty-first century, to the oversized monstrosity of Jerry’s World in Dallas. Investigating harrowing logistics and deeply ingrained traditions, Kohan employs his infectious “wit and style” ( Christian Science Monitor ) to expose the realities of building and maintaining these commercial cathedrals of sports worship. “Highly compelling” ( Kirkus Reviews , starred review), The Arena is a must-read for superfans, shameless bandwagoners, athletes, groundskeepers, culture junkies, and anyone who’s ever headed off eagerly to the ballpark to catch a game.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, Business, History, Basketball, Football, Baseball

416 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 2017

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Insightful look at stadiums’ relationship with their teams and fans. Full review to come.

3.5 stars

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sports arenas are temples to our national and regional obsessions. We go to them to worship and commune with our people, and to lose ourselves in the sense of ritual and something larger than ourselves. If tourists come to see the ruins of our civilization a thousand years hence, many of our neighborhood churches might be gone, but they won't miss the 100,000-capacity super-building with 3000 LCD screens in Arlington, Texas.

Considering the scale of these buildings and our relationship to them, it's pretty remarkable that no one has written a popular book about them before Rafi Kohan. But we are all the luckier that he got the job. This book is wryly funny and adventurous, and Kohan leaves no stone unturned. He mingles with the ticket scalpers in Cleveland, goes into Citi Field's mega-kitchen/food warehouse, and meets the pilots who fly over the stadium as the national anthem peaks. And, yes, he talks to the government officials who always seem able to find even more taxpayer dollars for a new sports complex across the street from the old one. This book even finds hope for a better plan next time.

Forget the game--you can watch it on TV. You're here for the crowds, the music, and the two-pound burger whose bun has been replaced by two pizzas. (It's in the book. I swear.) When you're done with this book, you'll never eat a bratwurst before the 4th inning, always look for water fountains when you get to the park, and--believe me--you'll love at least one halftime act like never before.

[Liz De Coster · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you follow modern American sports as a general concept, this book is for you, and I'd recommend it. Kohan's writing is very accessible, including phrases like "dumpster fire" and other trendy terms, and he relies on a combination of personal experiences and books as sources. These foci do occasionally position the book as a post-college road trip travelogue, rather than a work of extended journalism.
The chapters that initially showed the most promise were about New Orleans' Superdome post-Katrina, Penn State's Happy Valley after the Sandusky abuses came to light, and the later chapter on the military/athletic complex. In these cases the author buries the meat of the stories in the footnotes. Kohan does make his position more clear than other sportswriters, which is admirable, but after closing the book I thought expanding this coverage would help distinguish it from other conceptual sports coverage.
Towards the end, I found the book slowed down considerably, and I was mentally done before the pages were. I may pull out an anecdote or two at future sporting events, but there wasn't as much in the way of overall argument or cohesion as I'd anticipated when I picked it up.

[Julian Douglass · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s an interesting book for sure. Some chapters are more interesting than others. I think the biggest issue with this book is the inconsistency with the chapters. A few are tailored around a certain event (College sports stadiums, entertainment), while others are more broad based. I think that some chapters could have been reduced too to make them flow better. A good book, but I’m happy to have finished it.

[Eric Leventhal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a deep dive into all of the occupations, lifestyles, iconography, religiosity and tangential economies of sports in America, in all its maddening, sickening, hypocritical, life-affirming glory. Kohan has a lot of experience as an editor and it shows. There's really no part of the book that drags, even though there's so much detail and nuance that it actually feels like you're there, on the fringes of the traces of hero worship and on the shoulders of the superstar. Or literally in the tiny, poorly insulated room with the mascot de-masked and half-undressed, trying to cool down. As a narrator, Kohan is sarcastic and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but never above the fray or too cool for school. His enthusiasm for the subject matter comes across as not only sincere but also vicarious. I found myself bookmarking and taking notes in the margins of certain segments, hoping to return to passages or quotations for prosaic inspiration or earnest emotionality.

Bravo in every way for this book. Can't recommend it highly enough. Honestly, even for non-sports fans who justifiably don't eat/sleep/breathe this stuff, if only as a sociological assessment of why all this matters (even if it doesn't or shouldn't actually matter) more than its fanatics or critics would likely ever care to acknowledge.

Unpretentious, funny and smart. Bill Simmons meets Margaret Mead.

[Jeramey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went in expecting a paint-by-numbers approach to touring virtually every stadium in the United States. The end product is much better, and much different.

The book is much more about the subtitle (the tailgating, ticket scalping, etc, etc) than the title (the physical "arena"), and that's for the best. The interesting stories are much more in the people that make these buildings work than the building of them.

[Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not what I would consider a stadium nerd, but I have spent many many afternoons drinking in a parking lot as part of the sports fan ritual and totally enjoyed getting a nerdy look at the history and personalities behind some of the country's most storied stadiums. This was a fun break from the soul-crushing social science and VERY SERIOUS FICTION I have been reading recently.

[Jason Diamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting look at everything and everybody that makes the live sports experience. By diving into sports stadiums across the country, Kohan shows us an interesting side of American culture we might otherwise dismiss.

[MH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eleven essays about various social, cultural, and logistical aspects of American sports stadiums. There are a few personal quibbles: there's a very heavy emphasis on football and baseball (despite the title, basketball gets very little ink and hockey is only briefly mentioned in regards to ice maintenance in a chapter on multi-use arenas); pictures would have been useful, especially as the author refers to his picture-taking several times (but I read an ARC - maybe the final version will be different); and the portraits of various superfans, entertainers, executives and oddballs that the author embedded himself with are very hit-or-miss. But Kohan is a lively writer and a sharp cultural critic with the neat skill of distilling history and some heavy cultural theory (he cites Beaudrillard at one point) to expand on his ideas. The book moves quickly, it's well-observed, and some chapters are just fantastic (his essays on Katrina and the Superdome, and the NFL and the military, are both really moving and absolutely infuriating).

I was lucky enough to win an advance reading copy through a Goodreads giveaway.

[Jed Wasilewsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can honestly say I'll never attend a sporting event and look at the stadium, people, or game itself, the same way. Unbelievable read, from beginning to end.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved getting all the inside dirt about places we spend hours of our lives enjoying sports and music. A must read for sports fans.

[YuriyRatej · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tennis-Wettstrategien – Wie und wo kann man auf Tennis wetten?

Tenniswetten sind ein Trend, der in den letzten Jahren dramatisch zugenommen hat, da das ganze Jahr über Tennisturniere stattfinden. Wie bei allen Sportwetten ist es wichtig, herauszufinden, welcher Spielertyp Sie sind, bevor Sie mit dieser äußerst spannenden und potenziell gewinnbringenden Sportart beginnen. Hier ist ein Leitfaden, der Ihnen bei der Auswahl der besten Sportwetten-Buchmacher hilft.

Wenn man es gewohnt ist, auf den Sieger von Turnieren wie Wimbledon zu wetten, ist alles ziemlich klar. Wenn Sie jedoch den Adrenalinstoß von Live-Wetten bevorzugen, sollten Sie sicherstellen, dass Sie die Tennisregeln sowie die vielen anderen Faktoren kennen, die dafür sorgen, dass Geld auf Ihr Konto fließt.

Die beste Strategie für Tenniswetten beruht normalerweise auf gesundem Menschenverstand. Es braucht nicht viel Vorstellungskraft, um zu erkennen, dass Live-Wetten auf Tennisspiele von den Spielern selbst ausgehen, die viele Chancen generieren. Vorbei sind die Zeiten, in denen sich der Haupttrend bei Tenniswetten darum drehte, einen Spieler auszuwählen, der ein Match oder sogar ein Turnier gewinnt, denn Live-Wetten bieten viele neue Wettoptionen für jedes Spiel, jeden Satz und jedes Match.

Einige Regeln für Tenniswetten

Tennis hat mehr Variablen und mehr Märkte als fast jede andere Sportart, aber wenn man seine Gewinne maximieren und seine Verluste minimieren möchte, muss man eine Strategie anwenden, die auf einer Kombination aus wissenschaftlicher Theorie und guter Disziplin basiert.

Tun Sie es nur, wenn Sie den Wert sehen

Es versteht sich wahrscheinlich von selbst, aber es ist äußerst wichtig, es richtig zu machen. Wetten Sie nur, wenn Sie Value haben. Jede Tennis-Wettstrategie muss in der Lage sein, Wetten zu identifizieren, bei denen ein Wert besteht. Jedes Tennis-Wettsystem muss jedes Spiel aufschlüsseln und einige Turniere belassen, bei denen Wetten verfügbar sind.

Spezialisieren

Da das ganze Jahr über so viele Tennisspiele für Männer und Frauen ausgetragen werden, ist es am besten, sich auf das zu konzentrieren, was man am besten kann, und nur darauf. Es ist einfach unmöglich, jedes bevorstehende Tennisspiel richtig zu analysieren (es sei denn, Sie können ein komplexes Wettmuster entwickeln). Viele erfolgreiche Tennis-Buchmacher konzentrieren sich nur auf einen Bereich, sei es Herren- oder Damentennis, die Challenger Series (siehe hier) oder einfach den Grand Slam.

Konzentrieren Sie sich ebenfalls auf die Tenniswetten und -märkte, die Sie am besten kennen und mit denen Sie sich am wohlsten fühlen. Einige Wettende konzentrieren sich nur auf Handicaps, während andere Strategien entwickeln, um Value-Wetten zu identifizieren, sowohl im Satz als auch während des Spiels. Bei jedem Tennisturnier, auf das Sie wetten möchten, müssen Sie wählerisch sein und sich auf den Bereich konzentrieren, den Sie am besten kennen.

Erstellen Sie ein Konto bei mehreren Buchmachern

Wenn Sie sich auf nur einen oder zwei Buchmacher beschränken, verringern sich Ihre Chancen auf lange Sicht nur. Nein, wir empfehlen definitiv nicht, Konten bei Dutzenden verschiedener Buchmacher zu haben. Dies kann als übertrieben angesehen werden. Aber wenn Sie Tenniswetten nur bei einem oder zwei Buchmachern platzieren, wird Ihr Gesamtgewinn auf lange Sicht schmälern.

Warum?

Stellen Sie sich das mal so vor. Wenn Sie ein Konto bei nur zwei Buchmachern haben, sind Sie erstens auf eine engere Auswahl an Tennis-Wettarten und -Märkten beschränkt, aber was noch wichtiger ist, Sie sind auf eine engere Bandbreite an Quoten beschränkt.

Führen Sie Statistiken

Bei Tenniswetten spielen zwei wichtige Faktoren eine Rolle:

Identifizierung von Value Bets und gutem Bankmanagement. Eine gute Möglichkeit, in beiden Hinsichten diszipliniert zu bleiben, besteht darin, jede Tenniswette aufzuzeichnen und zu verfolgen. Diese Statistiken sollten Datum, Rennen, Wettart, Buchmacher, Wettbetrag, Quoten, Sieg/Niederlage und Kommentare enthalten.

Wenn Sie solche Statistiken nicht führen, gefährden Sie ernsthaft Ihre Chancen, langfristig ein profitabler Spieler zu sein. Indem Sie detaillierte Informationen zu Ihren Tenniswetten aufbewahren, können Sie Ihre Gesamtleistung überprüfen. Welche Arten von Wetten gewinnen Sie am häufigsten? Bei welchen Turnieren verlierst du Geld? Und nicht nur das: Wenn Sie eine Pechsträhne erleben (und das passiert selbst den besten Spielern), können Sie zurückblicken und sehen, wie Sie aus früheren Pechsträhnen herausgekommen sind.

[Klobetime · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, and I'm not entirely sure I didn't. Watching sports is a big part of my life: we have had season tickets for Longhorn football since 1992 and it has been longer than that since I've missed a home game (1) . When I travel, seeing a local event is one of my favorite pastimes, especially in a stadium I've not seen previously. So when I was gifted The Arena I was pretty excited, especially with a subtitle like Inside the Tailgating, Ticket-Scalping, Mascot-Racing, Dubiously Funded, and Possibly Haunted Monuments of American Sport. Sadly, there is more content about the people that inhabit these arenas than the arenas themselves.

It starts strong with a chapter that reads like a love-letter to some of the greatest old-school stadiums in America: the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field; Fenway Park, home of the Green Monster; and, the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. Later there is a chapter dedicated to the groundskeepers (whose work is seemingly only noteworthy when it is terrible), and later still a wonderful picture of the logistical nightmares of running these behemoths. All great stuff, and I wish there was more of it.

There is an entire chapter about the Superdome in New Orleans, but most of the detail is around the role the building played during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—and much of the Katrina rhetoric fell into the same quagmire as most other writing about the disaster, giving the impression that Katrina affected New Orleans and no other part of the country. Most disappointing was the chapter on college stadiums; all that is covered is the Penn State sexual abuse cover-up and Joe Paterno's legacy. So many collegiate cathedrals out there—the Rose Bowl, the Big House in Ann Arbor (there was a picture of this but no real discussion), Death Valley at LSU, hell, even Kyle Field—but instead all we get are the details of a vulgar scandal.

I'd recommend this unhesitatingly to any casual sports fan. The stories following the people in and around the buildings (scalpers, half-time entertainment, and unruly and misbehaving fans) are compelling and made the book hard to put down. I was hoping for more stories about the buildings themselves though, and ultimately left unsatisfied. A very good book, but a misleading title gave me a misleading impression.

First Sentence:

By the time I meet the mayor of Lambeau Field, he's already had a few.

 (1) My mother went to hear the author speak in Dallas, and they gave away a door prize to the person that had been in the most professional, semi-pro, or collegiate stadiums; I believe the winner was in the low 50s. This idea fascinated me, so I went through my history and tried to record all the places I've seen some sort of organized sport. Turns out it is quite a few, but I have multiple friends that leave me in the dust here. I look forward to expanding this list over the coming years!

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review title: Take me in to the ballpark

Professional sporting events require a playing field but more importantly a place for spectators to pay to watch. Those paying to watch traditionally paid for those playing on the field (court, ice), but with the dramatic rise in television revenue, the dynamics of the equation shifted. Now TV pays and dictates the place and sometimes pace of play, with TV timeouts and instant replay reviews enabled by the elaborate TV technology present in every arena.

So today's arena is a place shaped and staffed to entertain an audience every second it is in the building, and that very intense effort to entertain is Kohan's subject in this fast-moving book. It is not a book about what takes place on the playing field, but what takes place in the stands. Getting an audience into the seats takes marketing and ticket sales--Kohan spends a week in Cleveland during the 2016 NBA playoffs learning the scalping game from the inside. Keeping the fans in their seats takes entertainment--Kohan talks to an MLB team's mascot and a half time acrobatics performer. Keeping them fed and watered is the topic of his time in Citi Field, home of the MLB New York Mets (whose motto in this endeavor seems to be "We don't have to be the best, just better than the damn Yankees.")

Kohan's approach of casual interviews and interweaving with the story (assisting with an arena changeover from hockey to basketball, assisting the halftime acrobat with his show props) is what we used to call "new journalism." Now it just reads like a man-on-the-street approach to the behind the scenes stuff that makes sports work for fans, teams, players, owners, and the cities they represent. While he has done background research in the history and financial numbers behind the arenas, his approach is more human interest than rigorously quantitative, which makes the book interesting to the average fan and reader. For example:

How do ticket scalpers stay in business in the StubHub era of online ticket exchanges?

How do they time those military jet flyovers with the end of the National Anthem?

How do stadium security keep often drunk and unruly fans safe and in-line from the pregame tailgating through the turnstiles and in the concourse and seating areas of the stadium?

How do beer and hot dog vendors make money, how much can they make, and how do they determine who carries and sells what?

What happens when arenas are decommissioned: the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina, the Astrodome after replacement by newer venues, the Pontiac Silverdome after weather damage and sale to private owners for just over $500,000?

These are the kinds of questions and answers that don't change the world, but do drive huge investments in capital and business processes, so are fun and perhaps even important for fans and readers to know. Consider this the term paper you wish you could have gotten away with writing in high school, and the next time you plop down the big money it costs to attend a major league professional sporting event today, you can even justify it as active participation in the business of the ballpark and contributing to the health of the modern American economy.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

At look at not only the traditions and rituals that the fans of baseball and football - the professional and collegiate occupants of these stadiums and arenas - but at the buildings themselves from the venerable Wrigley Field to the most technological advanced. For it is these arenas - lures to keep professional teams homed in various cities in which contracts between the teams and the community practically demand subsidies, state-of-the-art construction and monetary allowances - in turn, become foci for local pride.

Kohan managed to get an insider's look - not only at the inside - concession logistics, broadcast control rooms as well as security that works to keep everyone safe (far too many fans when team pride mixed with alcohol become aggressive, belligerent and violent towards opposing fans) along with grounds-keeping and the changeover crews that can cover the ice floor for the hockey team so that the basketball team can play the day before a major concert utilizes the same space. Some 'home' teams have been 'encouraged' to play many away games in a row while longer-term activities (rodeo, circus, etc.) occur in their home arenas. Mascots and half-time entertainment and some rather bizarre promos - bobble-feet anyone?

And then there is the outside where tailgating and ticket-scalping still occur even with technology forcing e-tickets.

Some of the sadder stories connected with various arenas include:
*Beaver Stadium and Penn State in which the students, alumni and town were still wounded by the Sandusky, Paterno and Penn State administrator scandals as the college seemed not to be ready to address the issue.
*The Superdome trying to move beyond the horrors that happened during Hurricane Katrina.
* The abandonment of the Pontiac Superdome and how it slowly deteriorated even as a Canadian company attempted to find a use but costs were too high and it was eventually demolished in 2017 (after the book went to press).

Give me a different insight into these huge buildings and how much work and coordination it takes in order for everything to run smoothly, day after day. Game after game. Event after event.

2023-004

[Kelly Sedinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a terrific book! I'm always fascinated by the behind-the-scenes infrastructure of many of the events and activities that shape our culture, and this look into the stadiums, ballparks, and arenas where our prime sporting events happen is superb. Kohan examines issues like how stadium construction is funded, the logistics of keeping tens of thousands of fans fed, how law enforcement and security deal with unruly behavior, and even the sad issues of what happens to these enormous buildings once they are replaced and no longer used. (On this last point I would have liked a little more discussion of WHY so many viable sports venues get replaced so quickly--a prime example that sticks in my mind is Atlanta, which has just replaced its football AND baseball stadiums, neither of which were old, having both been built in the 1990s.)

Kohan also looks at the people around the stadium life: the ticket scalpers, for instance, and the way that sports stadiums can serve as the cultural focus for enormous groups of people from very far distances. He spends an entire chapter discussing the New Orleans Superdome and its fate during the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, and another in State College, PA, following the Penn State faithful into Beaver Stadium and discussing how the fallout from the Jerry Sandusky scandal affected that school's football culture.

THE ARENA is a terrific look behind the curtain at sporting events, showing how they are managed and how they happen. Terrific book!!!

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book that looks at modern sports stadiums. It takes on various facets of them - the funding that creates them, what happens to them when the teams have moved out, groundskeeping, food services, the non-sports entertainment that goes on during sporting events, security, etc. In each chapter, he goes to 2-3 stadiums that best exemplify what theme that chapter is on. He gets good access to his things. He gets to spend a day with the Royals mascot (even when he's only in partial costume), and is taken on a tour of the mold-filled old locker rooms at what's left of the Silverdome.

The best chapters are ones on ticket scalpers and on multi-use stadiums. Scalpers are often people on the margins of the economy who are trying to get by anyway you can. They are really being hurt by teams entering the secondary markets themselves. And stadiums aren't just used for sports but for all sorts of other events - anything they can to get people inside. Circuses, Disney shows, conventions, concerts - and that leads to all sorts of constant refurbishments that have to be done on the fly.

[Daniel Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father's all-time favorite Bears player is Ditka. Mine is Sweetness. He thinks Pete Rose played the game the right way. I like it when Javi throws bats and takes 17-minutes to round the bases after a home run. He thinks professional athletes these days are overpaid. I think it's better that Harrison Barnes swindle the Mavericks into a max deal contract than billionaire owners continuing to get away with treating players like indentured servants. I love the Cubs. He's now, somehow, decided to be a Cardinals fan. He's a dummy.

It's safe to say that we don't see eye-to-eye on much when it comes to sports.

But we both read this book. And we both loved it.

It marked the second time in our lives that we had agreed on anything sports-related: 1) Roberto Clemente is the greatest ever; and 2) we enjoyed Mr. Kohan's work immensely and have since recommended it to or bought it for multiple people.

Not sure what that means exactly, but probably worthy, at minimum, of taking a minute or two to share this review.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at all of the things that surround and make possible modern sporting events except the on-field activities. Some sections are more serious, such as the post-Katrina disaster that was the Superdome, the section on Penn State's stadium seen through the lens of the post-Jerry Sandusky events and attitudes, and the fate of older venues (and the game of venue switching played by team owners). Others consider surprising topics, like street scalpers, turf growers and mascots. If you read this, make sure you read the footnotes, because these are meaty and important, and sometimes bury the lead.

My only reservations involve the lack of overarching analysis that ties the sections together. There's not even any closing thoughts, which was disappointing after so much rich detail.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breezy, interesting but not quite enrapturing story of stadiums, sports and what they mean to us. The book is best read as a series of articles that would have been at home in, say, GQ (for which Kohan has written).

After awhile the book got a bit tiresome, and Kohan’s ever-growing list of footnotes became moreso. Still, I admire his determination to be a completist in range, if not always in depth. For example, you’ll get a sense of what it means to be a Packers fan, but not the feeling of bitterly cold days while hearts beat heavy above the Frozen Tundra. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s a big reason why we care — and don’t just live out our sports love through television and social media.

So 4 stars, really a 7/10. Enjoyable but not memorable.

[Sherrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining and informative look inside the world of sports arenas. Although some parts may be dated—the book is 6 years old and I’m sure tech has changed some things—there are wildly informative chapters on things I never knew existed. The last two chapters were the best: the relationship between sports and the military, and what happens when a stadium “dies”, emphasis on the Silverdome. Excellent read for any sports fan.

[Patrick Hanlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing and at times infuriating book about the weird preoccupation with stadia, specifically in the US. Some chapters of the book seemed a bit digressive but, on the whole, this is a vivid account of the challenges of building and maintaining stadiums and their significance as a gathering place, though a more private one than we might perceive.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. My favorite parts involved the sections about the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Cowboys. I loved the different sections, and as a sports fan, I learned a lot about the behind the scenes of the games.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it does lean heavily into stories around current/former NFL stadiums, this book is an interesting look into the business around these buildings (and some of the fun cast of characters often found within them).

[Alex Abboud · Rating 4 out of 5]

High 3/low 4. Some great stories about different arenas and aspects of their development, operation, and the fans’ relationship to them. Your mileage may vary depending on your interest in the teams/leagues whose arenas are profiled.

[JulieK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at the life (and death) of stadiums, including everything from scary Raiders fans to Alabama turf farms to concessions, scalpers, and dubious public funding.

[Nicole Soutar · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was summer reading for the high school - all about the behind the scene workings of sports - you do not have to like sports to enjoy - interesting

[Robert S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read but I would have liked to see a bit more emphasis on basketball and hockey.

[Bruce Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and interesting look at the American cathedrals.

[Marc Kirby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't about sports teams or athletes, it's about the culture of sports stadiums. It is an easy read and fairly interesting for sports fans looking for something a little different.