Indentured
ISBN-13: 9780143130550
Author(s): Joe Nocera
Subjects: S, WS
Publisher: PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE GROUP
Publisher Imprint: Portfolio
Publication Date: 27-02-2018
Format: Paperback / softback
Availability: In stock
£16.99
About the book
How can the NCAA blithely wreck careers without regard to due process or common fairness? How can it act so ruthlessly to enforce rules that are so petty? Why won't anybody stand up to these outrageous violations of American values and American justice? In the four years since Joe Nocera asked those quesètions in a controversial New York Times column, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has come under fire. Fans have begun to realize that the athletes involved in the two biggest college sports, men's basèketball and football, are little more than indentured servants. Millions of teenagers accept scholarships to chase their dreams of fame and fortune-at the price of absolute submission to the whims of an organizaètion that puts their interests dead last. For about 5 percent of top-division players, college ends with a golden ticket to the NFL or the NBA. But what about the overwhelming majority who never turn pro? They don't earn a dime from the estimated £13 billion generated annually by college sports-an ocean of cash that enriches schools, conferences, coaches, TV networks, and apparel companies . . . everyone except those who give their blood and sweat to entertain the fans. Indentured tells the dramatic story of a loose-knit group of rebels who decided to fight the hypocrisy of the NCAA, which blathers endlessly about the purity of its student-athletes while exploiting many of them: The ones who get injured and drop out beècause their scholarships have been revoked. The ones who will neither graduate nor go pro. The ones who live in terror of accidentally violating some obscure rule in the four-hundred-page NCAA rulebook. Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss take us into the inner circle of the NCAA's fiercest enemies. You'll meet, among others . . . ÛSonny Vaccaro, the charismatic sports marketer who convinced Nike to sign Michael Jordan. Disègusted by how the NCAA treated athletes, Vaccaro used his intimate knowledge of its secrets to blow the whistle in a major legal case. ÛEd O'Bannon, the former UCLA basketball star who realized, years after leaving college, that the NCAA was profiting from a video game using his image. His lawsuit led to an unprecedented antitrust ruling. ÛRamogi Huma, the founder of the National Colèlege Players Association, who dared to think that college players should have the same collective bargaining rights as other Americans. ÛAndy Schwarz, the controversial economist who looked behind the fa§ade of the NCAA and saw it for what it is: a cartel that violates our core values of free enterprise. Indentured reveals how these and other renegades, working sometimes in concert and sometimes alone, are fighting for justice in the bare-knuckles world of college sports.