A Matter of Scale.

For most of the twentieth century mass-entertainment spectator sports have been big business. American sporting contests have been commercialized to varying degrees since their inception, contrary to claims of some critics who yearn for a time when games were not sullied by money. Throughout the 1980s sports enjoyed unprecedented financial prosperity and mass popularity, even eclipsing the so-called Golden Age of Sport during the 1920s, when, in the words of Roderick Nash, "the nation went sports crazy." Without a doubt money dramatically changed the sporting world during the 1980s; those changes, however, were primarily a matter of scale, not kind. For instance, the amount of money generated from television contracts for the broadcast rights to professional leagues, big-time college athletics, and the Olympics increased tremendously. In 1982 television revenue provided $14 million a year per NFL team. By the 1990 season the per-team annual payout had risen...