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The Players Ball: A Genius, a Con Man, and the Secret History of the Internet's Rise
“An engrossing microcosm of the internet's Wild West years” ( Kirkus Reviews ), award-winning journalist David Kushner tells the incredible battle between the founder of Match.com and the con man who swindled him out of the website Sex.com, resulting in an all-out war for control for what still powers the internet love and sex.
In 1994, visionary entrepreneur Gary Kremen used a $2,500 loan to create the first online dating service, Match.com. Only 5 percent of Americans were using the internet at the time, and even fewer were looking online for love. He quickly bought the Sex.com domain too, betting the combination of love and sex would help propel the internet into the mainstream.
Imagine Kremen’s surprise when he learned that someone named Stephen Michael Cohen had stolen the rights to Sex.com and was already making millions that Kremen would never see. Thus follows the wild true story of Kremen’s and Cohen’s decade-long battle for control. In The Players Ball , author and journalist David Kushner provides a front seat to these must-read Wild West years online, when innovators and outlaws battled for power and money.
This cat-and-mouse game between a genius and a con man changed the way people connect forever, and is key to understanding the rise and future of the online world.
“Kushner delivers a fast-paced, raunchy tale of sex, drugs, and dial-up.” — Publishers Weekly
In 1994, visionary entrepreneur Gary Kremen used a $2,500 loan to create the first online dating service, Match.com. Only 5 percent of Americans were using the internet at the time, and even fewer were looking online for love. He quickly bought the Sex.com domain too, betting the combination of love and sex would help propel the internet into the mainstream.
Imagine Kremen’s surprise when he learned that someone named Stephen Michael Cohen had stolen the rights to Sex.com and was already making millions that Kremen would never see. Thus follows the wild true story of Kremen’s and Cohen’s decade-long battle for control. In The Players Ball , author and journalist David Kushner provides a front seat to these must-read Wild West years online, when innovators and outlaws battled for power and money.
This cat-and-mouse game between a genius and a con man changed the way people connect forever, and is key to understanding the rise and future of the online world.
“Kushner delivers a fast-paced, raunchy tale of sex, drugs, and dial-up.” — Publishers Weekly
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 9, 2019
About the author
David Kushner
36 books233 followersDavid Kushner is an award-winning journalist and author. He is a contributing editor of Wired, Rolling Stone, and Spectrum and is an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
July 25, 2019
2.5 stars
I read this because there were parallels to Billion Dollar Whale and Bad Blood and I was in my twenties for much of this story so I thought it would be interesting to read about all the craziness during the birth of the internet and domain registration craze. As it turned out, I think this book didn't end up being nearly as interesting as the other two. Maybe the author thought the salacious nature of the topic would be enough to carry the book, or the quirkiness of the main characters. But, for me, neither did the trick. I felt like the nuance, the richness of layers of research, and the depth was missing. It didn't turn out to be as interesting nor as insightful as I would have hoped.
I read this because there were parallels to Billion Dollar Whale and Bad Blood and I was in my twenties for much of this story so I thought it would be interesting to read about all the craziness during the birth of the internet and domain registration craze. As it turned out, I think this book didn't end up being nearly as interesting as the other two. Maybe the author thought the salacious nature of the topic would be enough to carry the book, or the quirkiness of the main characters. But, for me, neither did the trick. I felt like the nuance, the richness of layers of research, and the depth was missing. It didn't turn out to be as interesting nor as insightful as I would have hoped.
August 29, 2019
Page 16 "In the Fall of 1987, there was one newcomer wandering across the Stanford University campus who was especially eager to stake his claim: Kremen...."
Page 18 "Wall Street, which is just where Gary Kremen found himself in the summer of 1982, at age of nineteen. It was the summer after his freshman year at the Stanford..."
Gary Kremen did his bachelor's at Northwestern. I'm not interested in spending my time on a non-fiction book that has obvious factual and grammatical errors in the first 20 pages. Unacceptable editing.
Page 18 "Wall Street, which is just where Gary Kremen found himself in the summer of 1982, at age of nineteen. It was the summer after his freshman year at the Stanford..."
Gary Kremen did his bachelor's at Northwestern. I'm not interested in spending my time on a non-fiction book that has obvious factual and grammatical errors in the first 20 pages. Unacceptable editing.
May 13, 2019
As with all of Kushner's books, this one comes highly recommended. A fun read about the early days of the internet domain trade against the backdrop of two remarkable characters.
June 3, 2019
This book needed a better copy editor. Glaring typos and unnecessary repetition were distracting.
June 26, 2025
If I could give this less than one star I would.
Hard DNF.
The title sounds great but I've literally been trying to get through this book since I got it in 2019 and every time I pick it up I get through a bit and I put it down.
I'm not trying anymore. I think the author thought up a great title but he should have attached it to a fiction thriller novel.
The topic alone cannot carry a book. There needs to be a modicum of good writing. The publishing industry is tough but they still managed to get this one through. I'm gonna chalk this up to another case of white man mediocrity.
Hard DNF.
The title sounds great but I've literally been trying to get through this book since I got it in 2019 and every time I pick it up I get through a bit and I put it down.
I'm not trying anymore. I think the author thought up a great title but he should have attached it to a fiction thriller novel.
The topic alone cannot carry a book. There needs to be a modicum of good writing. The publishing industry is tough but they still managed to get this one through. I'm gonna chalk this up to another case of white man mediocrity.
September 15, 2020
This book was an interesting read on the start up of the internet and porn/dating services.
You would be surprised on how much they had in common.
However, I guess the author isn't all that great to me? I've read more interesting/gossip-y tales. This guy just wrote it duly.
If you're interested in seeing the background of all this play out, read it. Don't go into it thinking it's something amazing.
You would be surprised on how much they had in common.
However, I guess the author isn't all that great to me? I've read more interesting/gossip-y tales. This guy just wrote it duly.
If you're interested in seeing the background of all this play out, read it. Don't go into it thinking it's something amazing.
Read
February 26, 2021A tale of two terrible, boring, average men
June 2, 2019
banana. pants.
May 1, 2019
Good piece of internet history.
June 16, 2019
I feel silly for not knowing more about this story. I remember the dot.com days but somehow the tale of Kremen and Cohen escaped me.
Kushner tells a gripping tale over the battle of sex.com and I could barely put it down. The two protagonists were more similar than dissimilar—something that makes for an excellent read.
I'm sure that I'll be reading more of Kushner's books.
Kushner tells a gripping tale over the battle of sex.com and I could barely put it down. The two protagonists were more similar than dissimilar—something that makes for an excellent read.
I'm sure that I'll be reading more of Kushner's books.
June 11, 2026
The Players Ball — David Kushner
Core framing
The book reconstructs one of the earliest major internet property disputes: the theft and litigation around Sex.com.
At its core, it is not a cultural story about pornography, but a structural case study in how early internet assets
(domains, identity, and traffic) existed in a regime of weak enforcement, slow legal correction, and high-value capture opportunities.
System-level thesis
Domain names functioned as high-value digital property without mature enforcement mechanisms.
Identity and ownership were procedurally fragile and vulnerable to social engineering.
Legal systems operated at a fundamentally slower cadence than digital exploitation.
Outcomes were determined more by persistence and jurisdictional navigation than by initial legitimacy.
Structural interpretation
The Sex.com dispute illustrates a transitional phase of the internet where value was real but institutional control
mechanisms had not yet stabilized. Ownership was effectively probabilistic until enforced, and enforcement itself
was delayed, fragmented, and jurisdiction-dependent.
The deeper pattern is not criminality, but system asymmetry: speed of extraction consistently exceeded speed of correction.
Early internet context (era layer)
Emergence of Mosaic and Netscape as the first usable web interfaces.
Early search engines competing to define indexing and discovery.
Birth of banner advertising and attention-based monetization.
Usenet-era content distribution and fragmented media reconstruction workflows.
High friction media environment (low bandwidth, partial downloads, manual recombination of images).
Lived parallel: early Match.com experience (1995)
Joined Match.com in summer 1995, shortly after launch (April 1995). The system operated without meaningful algorithmic matching
and relied primarily on profile browsing within an extremely sparse user base.
A key constraint was demographic asymmetry: fewer than 10% of global internet users were women at the time, with even lower
participation in Asia. This produced a structurally limited but high-signal matching environment.
First meaningful match occurred within approximately one month.
That single match led to a four-year relationship.
Platform usage ceased after successful outcome; no further exploration required.
Recognition as an early success case resulted in lifetime membership.
Behavioral pattern
Usage reflects a single-shot optimization model: once a satisfactory outcome was achieved, continued participation in the system
had no marginal value. This contrasts with later platform designs built around continuous engagement and retention loops.
Memory triggers from the book
Usenet-era decentralized communication systems.
Early search engine competition and indexing conflicts.
Transition from Mosaic to Netscape and UI abstraction of the web.
Early banner advertising and experimental monetization structures.
Technical friction of low-bandwidth media consumption (partial downloads, image reconstruction).
Interpretive outcome
The reading does not significantly alter prior understanding of the period, but reactivates it as a coherent system memory:
a phase of the internet defined by weak governance, high informational asymmetry, and rapid value formation under minimal institutional control.
Summary
The book and the Match.com experience describe adjacent expressions of the same regime: early internet systems where
identity, ownership, and matching were structurally unstable, yet capable of producing high-value, long-duration outcomes from minimal initial interactions.
June 5, 2019
"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." - Albert Einstein
Like many young technologists, Gary Kremen envisioned the possibilties of the internet before the public knew about the. He imagined a world of wealth and possibilties exploding around him (p,16). From building his own computer to helping to build the internet network as a model that we understand it (ARPANET), Kremen went on to find success where he imagined the deepest treasures dwell - sex and dating.
Kushner's titilating book describes the ambitions of Kremen, and his legendary legal battle to win back a website he had ownership of (Sex.com). This battle against a con-man and slippery genius-in-kind Stephen Cohen, involved the craziness that only single-minded pursuits to supremacy can bring. Drugs. Offshore illicit accounts. Tijuana mansions. Botany hunters. Porn star girlfriends. Gun fights. Really wild stuff.
More fascinating in a lot of ways though is how Kremen's life pursuit for love and his own psychology for connection is filtered into his tech business. Though in the a thick world of smut, his pursuit for LGBT dating services, child protection filters, and educational resources from the porn revenue could be seen as an early attempt of working in his local government.
More stimulating than insightful...but overall an interesting read.
Like many young technologists, Gary Kremen envisioned the possibilties of the internet before the public knew about the. He imagined a world of wealth and possibilties exploding around him (p,16). From building his own computer to helping to build the internet network as a model that we understand it (ARPANET), Kremen went on to find success where he imagined the deepest treasures dwell - sex and dating.
Kushner's titilating book describes the ambitions of Kremen, and his legendary legal battle to win back a website he had ownership of (Sex.com). This battle against a con-man and slippery genius-in-kind Stephen Cohen, involved the craziness that only single-minded pursuits to supremacy can bring. Drugs. Offshore illicit accounts. Tijuana mansions. Botany hunters. Porn star girlfriends. Gun fights. Really wild stuff.
More fascinating in a lot of ways though is how Kremen's life pursuit for love and his own psychology for connection is filtered into his tech business. Though in the a thick world of smut, his pursuit for LGBT dating services, child protection filters, and educational resources from the porn revenue could be seen as an early attempt of working in his local government.
More stimulating than insightful...but overall an interesting read.
June 13, 2023
An enthralling tale of the Internet's early days with two primary characters, both of whom I found myself rooting against at different times. Gary Kremen obviously got screwed in the deal detailed in The Players Ball and rightfully fought for compensation. But I'm sympathetic to Stephen Cohen's argument that he, in fact, made sex.com a desirable property and Kremen stood to benefit from Cohen's legwork. Of course, stealing "land," digital or otherwise, as Cohen did, isn't cool. I suppose it's unfortunate the two couldn't strike some sort of settlement early on in the saga.
I'm always interested in reflecting on a period in my life through a broader lens. And the domain land grab depicted in The Players Ball occurred about the time I was logging on through the Prodigy service. My first stop on the Internet Superhighway came with a Prodigy disc and a 486 Packard Bell desktop complete with a 2400bps dial-up modem in the mid-90s. Bulletin boards and newsgroups weren't foreign to me, though I didn't spend much time exploring the underworld of such locales (single household phone line and all). I appreciated the storytelling throughout The Players Ball and felt I learned quite a bit about what happened behind the scenes as the fledgling Internet made its way to the masses.
I'm always interested in reflecting on a period in my life through a broader lens. And the domain land grab depicted in The Players Ball occurred about the time I was logging on through the Prodigy service. My first stop on the Internet Superhighway came with a Prodigy disc and a 486 Packard Bell desktop complete with a 2400bps dial-up modem in the mid-90s. Bulletin boards and newsgroups weren't foreign to me, though I didn't spend much time exploring the underworld of such locales (single household phone line and all). I appreciated the storytelling throughout The Players Ball and felt I learned quite a bit about what happened behind the scenes as the fledgling Internet made its way to the masses.
July 28, 2019
Interesting history of the Internet and how the dot.com names became to be considered PROPERTY by the courts and thus the need to legally purchase and register them - no more stealing. The story centers around Gary Kremen, founder of Match.com and the 0riginal register of that domain name as well as others including the domain name sex.com and Stephen Michael Cohen, the thief that stole sex.com; or tried to. Kremen subsequently won his case and the Domain Registering Company NSI settled with Kremen for $15 million. In 2006, the domain name sex.com sold for $12 million in cash as well as $2 million in stock.
AS an aside, Mike Zapolin, the domain-name guru bought Beer.com for $80,000 and Diamond.com for $300,000 and sold them for $7 million each.
AS an aside, Mike Zapolin, the domain-name guru bought Beer.com for $80,000 and Diamond.com for $300,000 and sold them for $7 million each.
January 27, 2020
Silicon Valley's kind of important to modern life, he typed into the website. But it seems difficult to tell compelling stories about the Place That's More Important Than Washington or L.A. or New York City When You Really Think About It. For one thing, coding isn't terribly dramatic. For another, the personalities can be noxious. In this instance, we don't have much coding but there are lawyers doing battle. It should have been boring, but the author handles it all deftly enough. Could we have seen more examples revealing why the genius was, in fact, a genius? Sure, but that's a minor quibble. (There is only one example of the genius's genius that I can think of and, yeah, he really was a genius.)
A fascinating read.
A fascinating read.
August 12, 2019
I hate how engrossing this was - it was just absurdity, thru and thru, and a gleefully voyeuristic look at what certainly seems, as presented, to be utter madness. I also desperately want to call bullshit on a few things, but, frankly, I wouldn't be too surprised it was all true, for a given value of true.
But, iunno man, I feel like I should hate it because much of the appeal is in disliking the main characters, and that makes me feel kinda dirty and manipulated, and guilty.
I can definitely recommend it as good drama, but don't expect to be learning any lessons - except possibly what you might from Moby Dick. You know what, go read Moby Dick - it's the same book, but old.
But, iunno man, I feel like I should hate it because much of the appeal is in disliking the main characters, and that makes me feel kinda dirty and manipulated, and guilty.
I can definitely recommend it as good drama, but don't expect to be learning any lessons - except possibly what you might from Moby Dick. You know what, go read Moby Dick - it's the same book, but old.
October 26, 2019
Maybe it's because of my background of many years in the computer industry. Maybe it's beause of the suspenseful writing style. For whatever reasson, I couldn't put this book down. It seems as much a novel as a piece of non-fiction, and the book is a well-researched chronicle of a part of the internet I never really knew anything about. And about two men I've never heard of before.
The Players Ball was a great read and I"m definitely glad my book club friend recommended it. I'm not sure if my other lady-friends will enjoy it as much as I have. That will also be interesting to see. I'm looking forward to our discussion next month!
The Players Ball was a great read and I"m definitely glad my book club friend recommended it. I'm not sure if my other lady-friends will enjoy it as much as I have. That will also be interesting to see. I'm looking forward to our discussion next month!
March 16, 2020
A fascinating read. The beginning and middle parts are so intriguing. As a reader you learn about the beginnings of these two very different yet very similar men. Planting the seeds about how their paths would split like a fork, and also leading towards the same destination. Towards the end, the cat and mouse game gets a little monotonous because I was hoping one side would just surrender, but neither do. Both men are determined.
It’s an interesting look at psychology. When is enough, enough? Why do people act the way they do? Why doesn’t this con man stop conning? Why doesn’t the victor stop after he’s won? Can either of them be happy? Content? Once again, when is enough, enough?
It’s an interesting look at psychology. When is enough, enough? Why do people act the way they do? Why doesn’t this con man stop conning? Why doesn’t the victor stop after he’s won? Can either of them be happy? Content? Once again, when is enough, enough?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 14, 2026
I met David and after serval conversations I decided to read some of his work. I was happy I did. This book brought back some memories that were pretty far back in my brain. I literally lived and grew up as a businessman during the same time period.
Admittedly, it took me serval months to finish but not because it wasn’t interesting but mostly because I find myself reading multiple books at the same time.
Actually, I put down “The Money Culture” to finish “The Players Ball” and Michael Lewis is my most favorite author.
Anyway, I liked the book and found it quite entertaining, putting a few typos and errors aside.
Admittedly, it took me serval months to finish but not because it wasn’t interesting but mostly because I find myself reading multiple books at the same time.
Actually, I put down “The Money Culture” to finish “The Players Ball” and Michael Lewis is my most favorite author.
Anyway, I liked the book and found it quite entertaining, putting a few typos and errors aside.
December 14, 2020
The premise of this was really interesting, but it went on for so long that I didn't get the ultimate resolution - did Kremen ever get his money from Cohen? The property rights of the internet legal battle was very interesting to me but I wanted to know more about who originally actually screwed up at the company who handed over the domain to Cohen in the first place, and why. It was amusing to listen to the audiobook and I don't know how George Newbern read it without giggling like a schoolboy at a lot of it.
January 10, 2021
This was an interesting slice of internet history . I didn't know that litigation between Kremen and Cohen led to domains being considered property. I also didn't know how much online porn influenced the development of internet traffic and advertisement. While the facts are interesting, this particular story did become a bit repetitive because Kremen chased Cohen for so long. I guess I was more interested in how their battle shaped the internet than in the details of the battle itself. Overall, and interesting read but it dragged for me toward the end.
June 24, 2019
This book is a fantastic and wild ride through the true story of the battle over the internet domain Sex.com
Kushner is a great writer, the story is told briskly but also thoroughly and it illuminates not only how some internet concepts were born (like subscription services, payment portals, domain names being protected property) but it’s also a wild tale about the two visionary men at odds who helped give birth to the internet as we know it today. Well worth the read, it is incredible.
Kushner is a great writer, the story is told briskly but also thoroughly and it illuminates not only how some internet concepts were born (like subscription services, payment portals, domain names being protected property) but it’s also a wild tale about the two visionary men at odds who helped give birth to the internet as we know it today. Well worth the read, it is incredible.
August 19, 2021
What a wild ride that was. Kinda shocked that though I certainly heard the stories about sex.com fetching the highest price of any domain back when it was sold, I had no idea that there was such a crazy story behind it all.
As a story this was gripping, so wild that I'm struggling to believe that it can all be true. If, for whatever reason it's not or embellished, well, I still feel like I read an enjoyable tale.
As a story this was gripping, so wild that I'm struggling to believe that it can all be true. If, for whatever reason it's not or embellished, well, I still feel like I read an enjoyable tale.
April 15, 2019
Book received for free through NetGalley
I loved this book. I'm not normally a non-fiction reader so that's saying something there. This book made you wonder how it would all ho down and you want to follow along on the journey. Not once did I want to Google to find out how it ended up as the book was so great.
I loved this book. I'm not normally a non-fiction reader so that's saying something there. This book made you wonder how it would all ho down and you want to follow along on the journey. Not once did I want to Google to find out how it ended up as the book was so great.
February 5, 2020
An interesting story about two pioneers completely obsessed with each other. I ultimately felt as if this could’ve been a long article instead of a book — the levels of drama contained within are inconsistent and ultimately lead to an anticlimactic ending. And there are some very obvious typos that completely took me out of the story multiple times.
May 14, 2019
This is PURE GOLD - read it!!
The true unvarnished story of the chaos that was the internet from 1993-2003. A true story with two unforgettable characters - worthy hero GARY Kremen and his far less worthy nemesis (for far too long). How The Good Guy Won The Internet!!
The true unvarnished story of the chaos that was the internet from 1993-2003. A true story with two unforgettable characters - worthy hero GARY Kremen and his far less worthy nemesis (for far too long). How The Good Guy Won The Internet!!
May 14, 2019
This book brings awareness to a side of the internet many are not aware of, the man is truly a genius that ultimately has to struggle with the unlimited choices before him.
Very enjoyable read.
Very enjoyable read.
July 6, 2019
I was intrigued by this book as I met my boyfriend on match.com. This book, however, was much more than the history of the founding of match.com. It’s about two nerdy geniuses trying to outsmart each other. It’s a cat and mouse game full of intrigue. I loved it.
August 8, 2019
My favorite part of this book was remembering how difficult it was to use the internet in the 1990's. Overall this was a good read with an interesting take on the central conflict. The people involved really come to life.
September 3, 2019
Interesting account of the early days of the World Wide Web and how two men battled for decades over a domain ownership. I found it fascinating at times, it read like a novel especially since I was not at all familiar with this particular story.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews