The only marketing guide that teaches athletes the skill of personal brand-building.

Defense doesn't win championships. Defense wins games. Brands win championships. In ten years, the most consistently successful college athletic programs will be those with the strongest brands, not simply the strongest defense or most explosive offense from year to year. It's not just about x's and o's anymore. It about polarizing uniforms on the field and massive billboards in Times Square. It's about making your brand sexy to seventeen- and eighteen-year-old blue-chip athletes. And this is your guidebook on how to reach them. Inside, you'll find three simple brand-building steps that can take your program from bad to good or from good to great. Jeremy Darlow is a brand marketing professional who, during his time at adidas, has worked with schools like Notre Dame, Michigan, and UCLA, and athletes like Robert Griffin III, Dwight Howard, and Lionel Messi. He works to help NCAA athletic programs and athletes build and elevate their brands to elite levels. *** "A must-read for anyone in sports marketing. This book sees the future and shows you how to get there." - Nate Scott, USA TODAY Sports, For the Win "Win or lose, here's how to build a national reputation for your college sports brand" - Al Ries, Author, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind "Brands Win Championships offers a practical primer on how to build your brand with story and perception" - Tim Newcomb, Sports Illustrated "Die hard fans-that one concept, that one overlooked idea-is just one of the big ideas you'll find inside this book that's not actually about sports " - Seth Godin, Author, Linchpin

Professional football today is an $8 billion sports entertainment industry--and the most popular spectator sport in America, with designs on expansion across the globe. In this astute field-level view of the National Football League since 1960, Michael Oriard looks closely at the development of the sport and at the image of the NFL and its unique place in American life. New to the paperback edition is Oriard's analysis of the offseason labor negotiations and their potential effects on the future of the sport, and his account of how the NFL is dealing with the latest research on concussions and head injuries.

The sports world according to Michael Rapaport—actor, Top 50 podcaster, award-winning film maker, and sports fanatic—from the greatest and downright worst athletes, players, teams, and jerseys, but minus statistics, analytics, or anything else that isn’t pure hustle in this “hell of a book” (Shaquille O'Neal). In 1979, nine-year-old Michael Rapaport decided he was going to do whatever it took to be a pro baller. He practiced and practiced, but by the time he was fifteen, he realized there was no place for a slow, white Jewish kid in the NBA. So, he found another way to channel his obsession with sports: talking trash. In the “crazy, passionate, funny and intense” (Colin Cowherd) This Book Has Balls, Rapaport uses his signature smack-talk style and in-your-face humor to discuss everything from why LeBron will never be like Mike, that Tiger needs the ladies to get his golf game back, and how he once thought Mary Lou Retton was his true love. And, of course, why next year will be the year the New York Knicks win the championship. This book is a series of rants—some controversial, some affectionate, but all incredibly hilarious. “Something is wrong with Michael Rapaport but that’s what makes him right,” (Charlamagne tha God).

A legendary NBA player shares his remarkable story, infused with hard-earned wisdom about the journey to self-mastery from a life at the highest level of professional sports Chris Bosh, NBA Hall of Famer, eleven-time All-Star, two-time NBA champion, Olympic gold medalist, and the league’s Global Ambassador, had his playing days cut short at their prime by a freak medical condition. His extraordinary career ended “in a doctor’s office in the middle of the afternoon.” Forced to reckon with moving forward, he found himself looking back over the course he'd taken, to the pinnacle of the NBA and beyond. Reflecting on all he had learned from a long list of basketball legends, from LeBron and Kobe to Pat Riley and Coach K, he saw that his important lessons weren’t about basketball so much as the inner game of success—right attitude, right commitment, right flow within a team. Now he shares that journey, giving us a view from the inside of what greatness feels like and what it takes. Letters to a Young Athlete offers a proven path for taming your inner voice and making it your ally, through the challenges of failure and success alike.

Many books have been written on the evils of commercialism in college sport, and the hypocrisy of payments to athletes from alumni and other sources outside the university. Almost no attention, however, has been given to the way that the National Collegiate Athletic Association has embraced professionalism through its athletic scholarship policy. Because of this gap in the historical record, the NCAA is often cast as an embattled defender of amateurism, rather than as the architect of a nationwide money-laundering scheme. Sack and Staurowsky show that the NCAA formally abandoned amateurism in the 1950s and passed rules in subsequent years that literally transformed scholarship athletes into university employees. In addition, by purposefully fashioning an amateur mythology to mask the reality of this employer-employee relationship, the NCAA has done a disservice to student-athletes and to higher education. A major subtheme is that women, such as those who created the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), opposed this hypocrisy, but lacked the power to sustain an alternative model. After tracing the evolution of college athletes into professional entertainers, and the harmful effects it has caused, the authors propose an alternative approach that places college sport on a firm educational foundation and defend the rights of both male and female college athletes. This is a provocative analysis for anyone interested in college sports in America and its subversion of traditional educational and amateur principles.

Warren Berger explores the structure and organisation of the advertising industry and its evolution over the past 30 years in this heavily illustrated volume. The author explains how the industry has attained its current important status.

#1 New Release in Teen Sports & Outdoors and Fitness & Exercise ─ A Champion State of Grind Exclusive interviews with the top athletes in sports today. Trust the Grind: How World-Class Athletes Got To The Top reveals how these men and women reached the heights of their profession so that you can too. Sixteen athletes from eleven sports arenas. Each chapter tells a different story, as each superstar shares the habit that helped them accomplish their goals and reach the pinnacle of their profession. Sports fanatic or not. Guaranteed to tap into your athletic edge, Trust the Grind, is made for sports fans and nonfans alike. Fans of professional athletes get an in-depth look at their heroes’ climb to the top; those less passionate about sports have the chance to read the secrets of success from some of the most talented people in the world. Both learn pivotal life lessons, and can immediately instill these particular traits and habits into their own lifestyle. A ‘success habit’ point of view. Learn the secrets behind success, and what it takes to remain on top. With Trust The Grind, you will learn about the value that comes with becoming disciplined, staying driven, setting goals, identifying your “why”, staying active and eating right, making sacrifices, obsessing over your passion, and more. Rather than harping on the remarkable accolades and astonishing statistics, this story is formulated to teach individuals what it takes to be great in any desired field. It includes interviews with the following athletes: • Jason Kidd • Chipper Jones • Terrell Owens • Paige VanZant • Manny Pacquiao • Mike Modano • Jimmie Johnson • Gary Player • Deena Kastor • Ryan Sheckler • Georges St-Pierre • Ryan Lochte • Devin Hester • Andruw Jones • Luis Gonzalez • Tim Hudson Fans of books like Relentless, Rising Above, The Cost of These Dreams, and The Young Champion's Mind, will enjoy Trust the Grind: Motivational Messages from Ambitious Athletes.

Traces the single-generation transformation of sports from a cottage industry to a global business, reflecting on how elite athletes, agents, TV executives, coaches, owners, and athletes who once had to take second jobs worked together to create the dominating, big-ticket industry of today.

"A marketing expert explains why some small companies grow into bigger and better organizations and others falter and asserts that companies can best expand their brand by using creative and sometimes counter-intuitive strategies to generate growth."--Publisher description.