It's Not Just a Game: Sports and American Culture Summary and Analysis

Sports used to be an unpaid leisure activity. People played sports because they liked to play. We've come a long way from those days since sports is now big business and sports figures are among the highest paid people in the world. Many of the rules were changed, like the time between pitches, in order to accommodate television. Rules are changed to keep the game exciting for the viewers and sports is just another form of entertainment due to the miracle of television. "The real competition in sports now is the competition for markets, and to reach those markets, American sport has been compelled to behave like all those other competing entertainments in an entertainment-saturated society" (Chapter 8, pg. 634).

Sports teams have big bills to pay...