Professional Sports

In the last two decades, innovation, data analysis, and technology have driven a tectonic shift in the sports business. Game of Edges is the story of how sports franchises evolved, on and off the field, from raggedly run small businesses into some of the most systematically productive companies around.

The definitive biography of the most important, popular, and confounding golfer of the post-Tiger era, masterfully chronicled by Alan Shipnuck, the bestselling author of Phil and LIV and Let Die. “Shipnuck produces a rich, nuanced picture.” —The Wall Street Journal Rory McIlroy contains...

A breakthroughexamination of professional wrestling - its history, its fans, and its widercultural impact - that does for the sport what Chuck Klosterman did for heavymetal

The Squared Circle grows out of David Shoemaker'swriting for both Deadspin, where hestarted the column "Dead Wrestler of the Week" - a feature on the many wrestlingsuperstars who died too young because of the abuse they subjected their bodiesto - and Grantland,where he covers the pro-wrestling world and its place in the pop culturemainstream. Shoemaker's sports writing has since struck a nerve withgenerations of wrestling fans who, like him, grew up worshiping a sport oftenderided as "fake" in the wider culture. To them, these professional wrestlingsuperstars are not just heroes but an emotional outlet and the lens throughwhich they learned to see the world.

Starting in the early 1900s and exploring the path of prowrestling in America through the present day, The Squared Circle is thefirst book to acknowledge both the sport's broader significance and wrestlingfans' keen intellect and sense of irony. Divided into eras, each section offersa snapshot of the wrestling world, profiles some of the period's preeminentwrestlers, and examines the sport's influence on our broader culture. Throughthe brawling, bombast, and bloodletting, Shoemaker argues that pro wrestlingcan teach us about the nature of performance, audience, and, yes, art.

Full of unknown history, humor, and self-deprecatingreminiscence - but also offering a compelling look at the sport's rightful placein pop culture - The Squared Circle is the book that legions of wrestlingfans have been waiting for. In it, Shoemaker teaches us to look past thespandex and body slams to see an art form that can explain the world.

Written without collaborators and based on decades of tape recordings he made throughout his career, Hitman is Bret Hart's brutally honest, perceptive and startling account of his life in and out of the ring that proves once and for all that great things come in pink tights...

I had a ring and a plan until my baby daddy walked back into my life. Five years ago, I met Hayden Scott. Legendary college football coach. Broad shoulders. Dangerous smile. I was the star volleyball player who made him break his own rules. We hid it. Craved it. Let it burn too hot. When the rumors started, he left town to save his career. I finished college. Pregnant. Determined to survive. Now I’m the head athletic trainer for an NFL team. And Hayden steps onto the field as the new coach, staring like he never forgot. I tell myself I’m stronger. But every look feels loaded. He reads ...

Breaking The Line is an emotionally charged contemporary romance set inside the unforgiving structure of professional sport, where control is currency and desire is a liability. Noah Bennett has built his life on structure. As a leader on Seattle’s professional rugby team, he trusts systems, discipline, and lines that hold under pressure. He doesn’t improvise. He doesn’t chase. And he definitely doesn’t let distractions through the wall he’s spent years perfecting. Then Maksim Volkov joins the team. Quiet, imposing, and relentlessly controlled, Maksim plays like a force of nature ...

This is The Shift, where “for the love of the game” has given way to an exclusive world of wealth and greed. Learn about it from someone who has lived it as a coach, mentor, and most importantly, as a father.

Discover the transformative New York Times bestseller—a step-by-step manual for mastering your inner mind for peak performance and living your life to the fullest. As a professional baseball player, Jim Murphy’s sense of worth revolved around results. He was focused on achievement but also...

“Sometimes, I felt like I’d give it all up if we could just have a normal life, to have him next to me at night because Lord knows, I was so over sleeping in a cold bed...” - Alsina Knight Most women would kill to live the life of a baller’s wife, but Alsina knows all too well that everything that glitters ain’t gold. She found love in the most unexpected way, but with Jokari playing ball overseas for months at a time, Sina starts to wonder what really has his attention: basketball or another chick? Kari has big plans to make this Valentine’s Day epic, but will he get caught up ...

Lucas Byrne has built his life on control. Captain of his country’s rugby team. Relentless on the pitch. Disciplined off it. He knows how to carry pressure, how to lead men into collision, how to keep every want neatly folded away where it can’t cost him everything he’s worked for. Elijah Kaine is a problem. Too talented. Too open. Too easy with laughter and touch and the kind of attention Byrne has spent years convincing himself he doesn’t need. Kaine plays like he has nothing to lose—and looks at Byrne like he already knows the truth he refuses to name. They’re supposed to be ...

No man has affected more runners in more ways than Bill Bowerman. During his 24-year tenure as track coach at the University of Oregon, he won four national team titles and his athletes set 13 world and 22 American records. He also ignited the jogging boom, invented the waffle-sole running shoe that helped establish Nike, and coached the US track and field team at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

Dylan Brooks doesn’t lose control. Chicago’s top-pairing defenseman built his career on structure, discipline, and clean hits that hurt without crossing the line. He doesn’t chase. He doesn’t spiral. He doesn’t let anyone inside his game. Marcus Reed is everything he isn’t. Boston’s resident villain. Fourth-line enforcer. League leader in penalties and highlight clips. He knows how to bait a fight, sell a rivalry, and make the cameras linger. When Dylan levels him on national broadcast, Marcus answers the only way he knows how. Gloves drop. Crowd explodes. The league eats it ...

I went to his penthouse to run a blood test. And ended up losing my V-card instead. The moment I crash into Nate Rourke, star tight end, I know I’m in trouble. He’s loud, cocky, impossibly gorgeous…and my best friend’s brother. I’m a new team physician for the NFL. He’s my patient and the last man I should be obsessing over. One reckless night in his penthouse turns my world upside down. A forbidden kiss. A mistake that feels far too good to regret. Suddenly resisting him is impossible. Because beneath his attitude is a loyal protector who makes me feel seen for the first time ...

Fourth And Goal A SPICY GAY FOOTBALL ROMANCE Fourth and Goal is a sizzling, slow-burn, emotionally charged gay sports romance that blends high-stakes football with tender vulnerability, second chances, and the kind of chemistry that hits harder than any tackle on the field. Evan Marshall is America’s Quarterback—iconic, adored, and trapped. At 28, the world believes he has it all: fame, fortune, a spotless public image, and the strongest arm in professional football. But behind the confident interviews and carefully controlled smile lies a man terrified of losing everything if the truth...

In his unfiltered style, Dave Portnoy details the journey of how he built his polarizing media empire, Barstool Sports, while refusing to bend the knee to those who tried to tear him down, staying true to himself and blocking out the haters. Dave Portnoy is a gambler. From his days playing...

Confessions of a Golf Pro Round 2 takes up the story where book one ends as our hero leaves his private club to manage a daily fee course in Orlando, there he finds the course a total disaster, the employees mutinous and the competition fierce. No one would be dumb enough to buy a daily fee golf course in the land of the mouse, would they? Well, no one but an avid golfer who was also a doctor, a lawyer or airline pilot. Professions where they get to play god in everyday life and think that the superpowers they possess naturally transfer to running a golf course better than the last group, ...

Ballyhoo! The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling is a history of professional wrestling’s formative period in the U.S., from roughly 1874 to 1941, and the contested interplay of wrestlers and promoters who built the “sport” as we know it. During this period, the major conventions that would define wrestling to the present day were perfected and codified, as wrestling morphed from a rough sport practiced on farms and at town gatherings to melodramatic mass entertainment that reliably drew large crowds in cities across the nation.

The complete inside story of the shocking steroids scandal that turned the sports world upside down For years, in the shadowy reaches of the world of sports, there were rumors that some of our nation’s greatest athletes were using steroids, human growth hormone, and other drugs to run faster...

After the 1969 season, the St. Louis Cardinals traded their star center fielder, Curt Flood, to the Philadelphia Phillies, setting off a chain of events that would change professional sports forever. At the time there were no free agents, no no-trade clauses. When a player was traded, he had to report to his new team or retire. Unwilling to leave St. Louis and influenced by the civil rights movement, Flood chose to sue Major League Baseball for his freedom.

The Final Lap He’s my boss… Boone Rivers is NASCAR royalty. When his little sister hires me as his assistant, I leap at the chance. His instant rejection doesn’t frighten me. After all, he needs my help to be the next racing hotshot. It’s not like I’d fall for a grumpy race car driver like Boone, right? There’s only one problem. I’m keeping a secret that could wreck his career. Telling him the truth will destroy us both. She’s my distraction… All that matters is my next win. It’s time to create a legacy separate from my famous father. I don’t do girlfriends, and I ...