Jeff Benedict,Armen Keteyian
AN EXPLOSIVE AND REVELATORY PORTRAIT REPORTED FROM DEEP BEHIND THE SCENES OF BIG-TIME NCAA COLLEGE FOOTBALL: THE PASSION, THE THRILLING ACTIONâ€”AND THE SHOCKING REALITIES THAT LIE BENEATH THIS COLOSSAL, MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS,Â ,COLLEGE FOOTBALL has never been more popularâ€”or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million.,Â Â Â Â  But behind this glittering success are darker truths: â€œathlete-studentsâ€ working essentially full-time jobs with no share in the oceans of money; players who often donâ€™t graduate and end their careers with broken bodies; â€œjanitorsâ€ who clean up player misconduct; football â€œhostessesâ€ willing to do whatever it takes to land a top recruit; seven-figure black box recruiting slush funds. And this: Despite the millions of dollars pouring into the game, 90 percent of major athletic departments still lose money. Yet schools remain caught up in an ever-escalating â€œarms raceâ€â€”at the expense of academic scholarships, facilities and faculty.,Â Â Â Â  Celebrated investigative journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian were granted unprecedented access during the 2012 season to programs at the highest levels across the country at a time of convulsive change in college football. Through dogged reporting, they explored every nook and cranny of this high-powered machine, and reveal how it operates from the inside out. The result: the system through the eyes of athletic directors and coaches, high-flying boosters and high-profile TV stars, five-star recruits and tireless NCAA investigators and the kids on whom the whole vast enterprise depends.,Â Â Â Â  Both a celebration of the power and pageantry of NCAA football and a groundbreaking, thought-provoking critique of its excesses, ,The System, is the definitive book on the college game.
Sports,Sports,Nonfiction,Football,History,Business,Audiobook,Economics,Education,Academic,College,Cultural
The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football