Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport (Caravan Book) [Hardcover]

Michael Oriard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2007 | Series: Caravan Book

Professional football today is a $6 billion sports entertainment industry. 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. At the heart of this story is a question with no simple answer: has the extraordinary commercializing and "branding" of NFL football since the late 1980s ironically weakened the cultural power of a sport whose appeal for more than a century was fundamentally noncommercial?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The National Football League is more than a collection of well-sculpted athletes; it is a business colossus that has mastered marketing and features media- savvy players, and owners who have taken full advantage of corporate sponsorship. Oriard, a former NFL offensive lineman in the 1970s and now a university professor, examines how the NFL became a business titan, examining the effects of such landmark events as the 1960 hiring of NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle and how the 1993 labor agreement between the players and owners made the league's economic structure more stable and thus much more lucrative. Oriard sometimes gets off track in detailing the league's rise to iconic status, but even his diversions on the players' struggles with owners and how racial stereotyping (even when black quarterbacks are no longer an anomaly) still colors the game are enlightening and well researched. With his casual humor and refreshing lack of academic-speak, Oriard has fashioned a riveting examination of how a violent sport has become a staggering mainstream American success. (Sept.)
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Review

"Provides an excellent history of the NFL. . . . Sophisticated and accessible. . . . Especially appropriate for undergraduate and non-scholarly readers."
-American Studies

"A fascinating journey from the 1969 beginning of Pete Rozelle's reign and his revolutionary idea of revenue sharing to the 2007 hiring of Roger Goddell and the failure to persuade cable providers to carry the league's network as a part of their basic packages."
-Aethlon

Enlightening and well researched. With his casual humor and refreshing lack of academic-speak, Oriard has fashioned a riveting examination of how a violent sport has become a staggering mainstream American success.

-Publishers Weekly

"An excellent addition to the literature on sport. . . . Recommended."
-CHOICE

Detailed, compelling, and strangely fascinating. . . . This book's signal contribution to our understanding of leisure, culture, and sport in America makes it highly recommended.

-Library Journal, starred review

Oriard, a former pro player and current professor, makes the epic tale of the NFL's touchdown drive from tainted image to powerhouse brand as intensely exciting as a Sunday game on a highlight reel.

-Robert Lipsyte, contributing writer, The New York Times

Brand NFL is the definitive account of America's most compelling sport.

-Sally Jenkins, sports columnist, The Washington Post

Only an offensive center could have written this book! Michael Oriard is detailed, conscientious, and accurate. This is the most comprehensive document of NFL growth I have seen.

-Bill Curry

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (July 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807831425
• ISBN-13: 978-0807831427
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #803,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very solid, with an exception, April 2, 2008

By 

T. Burket "tburket" (Potomac, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport (Caravan Book) (Hardcover)

Michael Oriard explores an area relatively uncovered in the vast flow of information about football. And that is the establishment of the NFL as a business, especially a media and entertainment enterprise instead of a simple sport played by romanticized warriors.

Oriard is first-rate on the history of the game and its development from a minor sport to the top tier starting in the late 1950s and 1960s. He nicely balanced football and its personalities, such as Lombardi, with the awakening of football as a business, primarily under the timely leadership of Pete Rozelle. People who remember the 1960s should enjoy the history, and young fans could find much to learn. The author is informative and concise.

He then moves into the next wave, with Joe Namath as one of the anchors, with his free spirit and large contract as indicators that, in retrospect, were seminal that seem almost quaint by now. Wow, long hair and white shoes! Here again, the personalities and the business evolved as parallel trends, influencing each other. Pete Rozelle began to lose his grip and the stakes got too high as football became America's #1 sport and the media coverage meant problems became public. Financial visionaries such as Jerry Jones of Dallas were about to open another whole dimension.

Oriard writes extensively about the beginning of the labor movement within football, all the way to the current relative peace. This is possibly both one of the strongest and weakest parts of the book. The strength is that the topic is relatively unfamiliar and normally underestimated in its importance, plus Oriard the ex-player has that insider's perspective. The weakness may be that it may be more than many fans wanted to know, and Oriard certainly is not impartial. Even so, the one-sided nature of owner-player relationship in the old days is almost appalling to read now. Younger fans may also be shocked to hear how little revenue football had and how little players made.

Oriand tackles one of the third rails of sports, that of why black athletes dominate, black cultural issues as they relate to football, and both subtle and obvious racism. He makes some reasonable observations, while also hemming and hawing around specifics where you cannot really win. The "exception" in my title is that he really should have stayed away from intelligence, other than the obvious history of blacks being kept from so-called skill positions that allegedly needed mental skills beyond their capacity. Wading into general intelligence controversies served no purpose, and Oriand misrepresented the famous "Bell Curve" book anyway. In this case, stick to your knitting.

Oriand closed with the transition from Paul Tagliabue to Roger Goodell as the new commissioner, naturally a time to re-assess the state of the business. To Oriand, Goodell fits football's continued growth in complexity that demands far more than Pete Rozelle the PR man. Oriand is very optimistic about football's future, yet he doesn't shy from some of the risks.

That attitude helps the general tone and credibility of the book. A breathless "homer" would have been uninteresting. A negative beat-down would have been unrealistic and pointless. As he said near the end, "Is the NFL become primarily a media company, or, is it still, above all, a national *football* league? It is both, of course, but the balance has been shifting, and how the commissioner will manage that balance over the coming years will be the story of the post-new NFL, whatever it will be called."

I can't argue with that. What I hope Oriand and Goodell realize is that excessive commercialization is itself a major risk. Major sporting events already are flirting with unwatchability with all the commercials and side shows. It's one area that could have gotten a bit more attention here. Why exactly is it that people like me watch less football than before, why don't I want to pay for the NFL Network, and why don't I like being shaken down at every opportunity by Dan Snyder?

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Brooke, OSU Comp Student 2010, March 31, 2010

By 

Brooke Towle - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport (Caravan Book) (Hardcover)

I read Brand NFL for a paper I had to write in my Comp 2 class at Oklahoma State University. I read this book becasue Marketing in the NFL is what I am wanting to go into. This boook was very interesting when it came to what the NFL was back in the old days tho what it is today. The money aspect of the book and how much money the professional teams make are interesting and when Oriard goes into detail different players and he talks about how these specific players are very marketable, I think that is what we look at today when watching the NFL. We look at different players and not only how they play but if they are popular or not. This book was a great read and very interesting.

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A rather dry history of the NFL, May 18, 2008

By 

Glennard - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport (Caravan Book) (Hardcover)

The author is a college professor and the book reads like a term paper. He quotes other sources to the point where there are so many footnotes is disrupts the reading. And even though he is a former player he gives precious little info about his personal experience and opinions. The colorful characters and mud-splattering drama you associate with the NFL are mostly absent. A great case study and historical text if that's what you want. But not entertaining.