Free agents Bobby Bonilla, Barry Bonds, and Doug Drabek leave the Pittsburgh Pirates to earn millions elsewhere, turning the division-winning Pirates into also rans. CBS, the network that paid billions for baseball and football in the 80s and 90s, surrendered the sports to its rivals in 1993. After years of being among the lowest paid pros, NFL players from linemen to running backs joined the millionaires club of free agency in 1993. We are bombarded with headlines about the big money in sports today. Players' salaries go up and up, the price of teams goes up and up, while doomsayers predict the bubble is about to burst. Where is sports going, and what is pushing it there? The Name of the Game offers some answers. This unique book about the forces acting on bigtime team sports in America traces their growth from the days when George Halas ran an entire franchise himself to the present, when managing a team resembles the governing of a small city. Learn how teams were businesses at the start, and how the size of those businesses today affects everyone who plays and watches sports or even buys a team cap. Learn about fan equity, the secret force driving sports economics, and learn how it can make even an inept team a winning business. Spiced by candid revelations from such insiders as Boston Celtics President Red Auerbach and Jeff Smulyan, former owner of the Seattle Mariners, The Name of the Game asks hard questions about the most strategic elements of sports: . Superstars - why are they so important, and which ones are worth those big contracts? Expansion - is it good or bad for sports? Is it good business or bad business? Ownership - if escalating salaries and shrinking televisionrevenues do predict hard times ahead, why do teams always change hands for ever more money, and why is each new expansion more costly than the one before? Fans - how much do rising ticket prices, late-night broadcasts, and increased player mobility threaten their devotion? Just as a box score or a summary tells what happened in a game, The Name of the Game looks inside sports, at television, licensing, marketing and attendance, and it tells how each can make a team a winner or loser in its annual report. The Name of the Game is a book for everyone who loves sports and has a personal stake in its spiritual - not simply its financial - health.