New Books In Sports

CrossFit in the United States has become increasingly popular, around which a fascinating culture has developed which shapes everyday life for the people devoted to it. CrossFit claims to be many things: a business, a brand, a tremendously difficult fitness regimen, a community, a way to gain salvation, and a method to survive the apocalypse. In The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon (NYU Press, 2025), Dr. Katie Rose Hejtmanek examines how this exercise program is shaped by American Christian values and practices, connecting American religious ideologies to secular institutions in contemporary American culture. Drawing upon years of immersing herself in CrossFit gyms in the United States and across six continents, this book illustrates how US CrossFit operates using distinctly American codes, ranging from its intensity and patriarchal militarism to its emphasis on (white) salvation and the adoration of the hero and vigilante. Despite presenting itself as a secular space, Dr.

In 2018, the United States Supreme Court opened the floodgates for states to legalize betting on sports. Eager for revenue, almost forty states have done so. The result is the explosive growth of an industry dominated by companies like FanDuel and DraftKings. One out of every five American adults gambled on sports in 2023, amounting to $121 billion, more than they spent on movies and video games combined. The rise of online sports gambling—the immediacy of betting with your phone, the ability of the companies to target users, the dynamic pricing and offers based on how good or bad of a gambler you are—has produced a public health crisis marked by addiction and far too many people, particularly young men, gambling more than they can afford to lose. Under intense lobbying from the gaming industry, states have created a system built around profit for sportsbooks, not the well-being of players. In Losing Big: America's Dangerous Sports Gambling Boom (Columbia Global Reports, 2025), historian Jonathan D. Cohen lay

In the Nation's Capital, music and sports have played a central role in the lives of African Americans, often serving as a barometer of social conflict and social progress―for sports clubs and ball games, jam sessions and concerts, offered entertainment, enlightenment, and encouragement. At times, they have also offered a means of escape from the harsh realities of everyday life. Rhythms of Resistance and Resilience (Georgetown UP, 2025) tells the story of these musicians and athletes who have used their skills and their determination to achieve success in the face of discrimination. Jackson begins with pioneers such as James Reese Europe, who formed the first musicians' union and fought as a member of the Harlem Hellfighters in World War I, and ends with giants of the twentieth century, such as Duke Ellington and Georgetown University basketball coaching legend John Thompson Jr. Readers interested in the history of Washington, DC, the civil rights movement, racial justice, music, and sports will draw importa

Who are you, how are you supposed to live, and what about happiness? Answers to age-old questions are offered in classic myths about heroes, gods, and monsters, and at the ballgame. In The Ancient Wisdom of Baseball (Greenleaf, 2025), author Christian Sheppard interweaves Homer’s epics with glorious stories from the green fields of America’s pastime, celebrating Achilles’ courage and Odysseus’ cunning along with the virtues of Hall of Fame players such as Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth and of great teams such as the 2004 Red Sox and the 2016 Cubs. Along the way, Sheppard humorously recollects trying to raise his baby daughter true to the teachings of ancient myth and his beloved game. The result is an endearing, insightful, and inspiring guide to cultivating virtue and becoming the hero of your own life’s odyssey. Christian Sheppard holds a PhD in Religion and Literature from the University of Chicago where he taught the “Great Books” for over a decade. He is presently a professor of liberal arts at the School

Professional baseball has featured a bevy of superstars over the past century and a half, but only a few of them have impacted their sport and cities as deeply as Willie McCovey and Billy Williams. Born just a handful of miles apart in 1938, they grew up in and around one of the sport’s true cradles, Mobile, Alabama, on their way to producing two iconic careers in Major League Baseball. In A Time for Reflection: The Parallel Legacies of Baseball Icons Willie McCovey and Billy Williams (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025), Jason Cannon examines these two legends of the game. Overcoming the heinous racism of the Jim Crow South as part of the second generation of African American major leaguers who followed in the footsteps of Jackie Robinson, they became two of baseball’s all-time greatest players. Off the field, they took impactful stands for racial progress that continue to resonate today. Their personal resolve, leadership in the clubhouse, and dedication to their baseball communities endeared them to teammates and

NBN host Hollay Ghadery chats with author D. D. Miller about the fascinating sport of roller derby. As the Derby Nerd, Miller covered roller derby since 2009, travelling to games across Canada and the United States, including two world championships, reporting back to an ever-growing audience the details of the sport. In this entertaining and thorough book he explains roller derby to newcomers and charts the sport’s rise from small groups of women looking for people to skate with over the Internet to the world presence it has become. Along the way he considers roller derby’s roots in Riot Grrrl and DIY culture, and the importance of the LGBTQ community both inside and outside of the sport. Eight-wheeled Freedom: The Derby Nerd's Short History of Flat Track Roller Derby (Wolsak and Wynn, 2016) is a warm, thoughtful look at a sport that Miller understands intimately, which takes us beyond the costumes and showmanship, into the heart of what he feels may be the first truly feminist sport. About D.D. Miller D. D.

Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous injuries, few pro-career opportunities, a free but devalued college education, and future financial instability. In one of the first ethnographies about Black college football players, anthropologist Tracie Canada reveals the ways young athletes strategically resist the exploitative systems that structure their everyday lives. Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football (University of California Press, 2025) shows how college football particularly harms the young Black men who are overrepresented on gridirons across the country. Although coaches and universities constantly invoke the misleading "football family" narrative, this book describes how a brotherhood among Black players operates alongside their caring mothers, who support them on and off the field. With a Black feminist approach—one that highlights of

The evolution of basketball, and much of the social and cultural change in America, can be traced through one powerful act on the court: the slam dunk. The dunk's history is the story of a sport and a country changed by the most dominant act in basketball, and it makes Magic in the Air: The Myth, the Mystery, and the Soul of the Slam Dunk (St. Martin's Press, 2025) a rollicking and insightful piece of narrative history and a surefire classic of sports literature. When basketball was the province of white men, the dunk acted as a revolutionary agent, a tool for players like Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell to transform the sport into a Black man’s game. The dunk has since been an expression of Black culture amid the righteous upheaval of the civil-rights movement, of the threat that Black people were considered to be to the establishment. It was banned from college basketball for nearly a decade―an attempt to squash the individual expression and athleticism that characterized the sport in America’s cities and

John Madden is synonymous with football. He was the television face and voice of the nation's most popular sport, the namesake of its best-selling sports video game, and the man with the highest career winning percentage of any NFL coach. Despite his international fame, there was a side of Madden known only to those who listened to morning radio broadcasts in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's where Madden grew up, lived, and died. It's where for decades he found joy in a daily chat with his hometown radio station: a chance to unwind, tell stories, and impart his own brand of wit and wisdom.  In Mornings with Madden: My Radio Life With An American Legend (Triumph, 2024), Stan Bunger— the man most often on the other side of the mic— illuminates this larger-than-life figure, drawing upon memories of more than fifteen years of daily broadcasts, backed up by thousands of recordings of those conversations. Readers who adored Madden's football acumen and quirky personality on NFL broadcasts will get to know the fat

Michael Ray Richardson was a star in the making. After a stellar collegiate career at the University of Montana, where he was voted first team All-Big Sky Conference as a sophomore, junior, and senior, the future seemed bright. Taken fourth overall in the 1978 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks, Richardson was billed as “the next Walt Frazier.” In just his second professional season, he became the third player in NBA history to lead the league in both assists and steals—both Knicks team records. Richardson would also notch four All-Star appearances and twice being named to the All-Defensive team over eight seasons between the Knicks, Golden State Warriors, and New Jersey Nets. But during that time, his time off the court was having a bigger impact on his career than what he was doing on the court. On February 25, 1986, after three violations of the league’s drug policy, NBA commissioner David Stern would ban Richardson from continuing his professional career. His struggles with drugs and alcohol were well docum

John Eglin talks with Jana Byars about The Gambling Century: Commercial Gaming in Britain from Restoration to Regency (Oxford UP, 2023). Gambling captures as nothing else the drama of the "long eighteenth century" between the age of religious wars and the age of revolutions. The society that was confronted with games of chance pursued as commercial ventures also came to grips with unprecedented social mobility, floated by new wealth from new sources created fortunes from trade in sugar, cotton, ivory, silk, tea, or enslaved human beings. Likewise, play for money was prominent in the public imagination as money itself, deployed through an ever expanding and ever more sophisticated range of mechanisms, increasingly invaded public awareness, as when prospective spouses in period fiction were rated in terms of annual income as if they were municipal bonds. Similarly, the archetypal figure of the gambler captured the imagination of the public in fiction, media, and politics. At the same time, new interest in scien

How did Jurgen Klopp change Liverpool? In Transformer: Klopp, the Revolution of a Club and Culture (Canongate, 2024), Neil Atkinson, host of The Anfield Wrap tells the story of Klopp’s time at the football club and in the city. The book ranges widely, from socio-cultural history, through personal memoir, to tactical analysis and contemplations on the changing styles and patterns of football. Structured around 19 key games, the book also features reflections on the need for a transformation in English (as well as European and global) football governance, alongside politics and society more generally. Funny, moving, and deeply poignant, the book will be of interest to anyone seeking to understand football, culture and society in past decade. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Balls of Confusion: Pro Basketball Goes to War(1965-70) is the first of a two-part story about one of the most transformative events inpro basketball history: the war between the National Basketball Association and its challenger the American Basketball Association (ABA).From this nine-year battle for the heart of the game, modern pro basketball emerged in the mid-1970s and grew into today's global, multibillion-dollar sports industry. Part One takes a definitive behind-the-scenes look at both leagues marching to war, their marketing schemes, their labor woes, their legal challenges, and their coming to terms with the 1960s and the nation's changing attitudes on race. If you love sports history and pro basketball's throwback days of Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Connie Hawkins, and Julius Erving, this is a book for you, with part two soon to follow. Paul Knepper covered the New York Knicks for Bleacher Report. His first book was The Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers That Almost Wo

Last week, the press focused on what the press repeatedly characterized as an “ugly” fight between American college football players that broke out after the University of Michigan beat The Ohio State. But another story received less attention. Medrick Burnett Jr., a 20 year old from Southern California was playing his first season as a linebacker with Alabama A&M University when he sustained a head injury during the annual Magic City Classic against in-state rivals Alabama State University on Oct. 26. A month later, Burnett died. Today’s Postscript features two prominent scholars of sports raising questions about the hypocrisy of blaming players for a fight yet downplaying the death caused by playing by the rules. This remarkable conversation includes an unpacking of the “consent” to physical, psychological, and economic impacts, insight into the Foucauldian elements of discipline, punishment, and surveillance, and concrete reform suggestions for all people who watch football and/or work at universities. Thi

In this first episode of a three-part series called Voices, we’re listening to the sound of American football—specifically the role of voices in the NFL. We start with a rather quirky story from NFL history that speaks to how the voice intersects with our ideologies around both disability and gender. It’s about a player whose voice stopped working the way it once did, revealing that football isn’t just a competition between teams on the gridiron—it’s a competition of audibility and vocal toughness. And like the rest of our Voices series, it opens up fascinating questions about what a voice actually is, what it does, and what it means, to us and to those around us.  Our guest is Travis Vogan, a prolific sports media scholar at the University of Iowa. Vogan has written books on ABC Sports, ESPN, boxing movies, and those “voice of God” NFL Films. We also hear briefly from sound scholar Jonathan Sterne, who will feature prominently in an upcoming episode of this Voices series. Some of this episode is based on the

Football is the national game in the United States – and many families and friends bond over their love of the sport. While few people play professional football, many participate in tackle football as children and adolescents. In the last decades, more attention has been paid to the dangers of playing tackle football, including traumatic brain injury and the degenerative brain disease, CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). As more former players donated their brains, the rate of CTE surprised even those already concerned with traumatic brain injury. If the risks are so great, why do more than two million American children under the age of 18 continue to play tackle football? Is it the opportunity to contribute to a team? Overcome adversity? Test personal limits? In Tackle Football and Traumatic Brain Injuries: Law, Ethics, and Public Health (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024), Dr. Daniel S. Goldberg asks readers to think about American tackle football as an industry – like the American tobacco industry – that sells a

In Michigan Vs. Everybody: Inside the Wolverines’ 2023 National Championship Season (Triumph Books, 2024), The Detroit News' Angelique Chengelis expertly retraces an unforgettable championship season. Featuring in-depth reporting and an unforgettable cast of characters including Jim Harbaugh, J.J. McCarthy, Roman Wilson, and Junior Colson, this is the story of how the Wolverines rallied together amid adversity, silenced their critics, and returned championship glory to Ann Arbor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

The Routledge Handbook of Esports (Routledge, 2024) offers the first fully comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of esports, one of the fastest growing sectors of the contemporary sports and entertainment industries. Global in coverage, the book emphasizes the multifaceted nature of esports and explores the most pressing issues defining the competitive video gaming landscape today. Featuring the work of 93 leading esports academics and industry specialists from around the world, and rigorously peer-reviewed, the book is structured around ten key themes: 1) Introduction to Esports, 2) Esports Research, 3) Esports Players, 4) Esports Business and Management, 5) Esports Media and Communication, 6) Esports Education, 7) Critical Concerns in Esports, 8) Global Esports Cultures, 9) Esports Future Directions, and 10) Key Terms Definitions. Examining the current state of esports, emerging areas of interest and the ongoing debates shaping the esports industry, each of the 62 chapters offers key highlights, an assessm

It’s now the norm for NBA and collegiate teams to have international players dotting their rosters. The Olympics are no longer a gimme for Team USA. Both via fans streaming from all over the globe and leagues starting in countries throughout the world, the international presence of the game of basketball is a force to be reckoned with. That all started with Hakeem “the Dream” Olajuwon. He was the first international player to win the MVP, which is hard to believe now considering the last time an American‑born player won it was in 2018. Award-winning hoops journalist Mirin Fader explores this phenomenal shift through the lens of what Olajuwon accomplished throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon (Hachette, 2024) ignites nostalgia for Phi Slama Jama and “the Dream Shake,” while also exploring the profound influence of Olajuwon’s commitment to Islam on his approach to life and basketball, and how his devotion to his faith inspired generations of Muslim people around the world.

Painstakingly researched and written by football-obsessed writer and experienced game journalist, historian, and documentarian Richard Moss – author of Bitmap's own The Secret History of Mac Gaming – A Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games stays keenly on the ball as it shares the rich and influential history of video game football – or 'soccer', for our American readers – striving to understand the very best the genre has to offer; and those releases that go a little wide of their target. A Tale of Two Halves takes you on a fascinating journey from the very first examples of the form all the way through to the genre's 2000s' heyday. It hits the back of the net with expert analysis of over 400 football games, including Sensible Soccer, Kick Off, Match Day, FIFA, Pro Evolution Soccer, This Is Football, Championship Manager, Premier Manager, and both old-school and new-school Football Manager. Gathered together in a single volume, that remarkable spread of releases presents a surprising variet