Sociology of Sports

From ESPN reporter Marc Raimondi comes a compelling, gripping narrative history of professional wrestling’s legendary faction, The NWO (New World Order), from their inception in 1996 to their influence on American pop culture today.

On Muscle shows us the poetry in the physical, and the surprising ways muscle can reveal what we’re capable of.

The inside story of the crisis within the country’s most classic sport—horseracing—and why money is killing thoroughbreds at the top of their game.

The Why Is Everything is the story of old dogmas falling before astonishingly creative new strategies and game plans.

Fueled by her years as an elite runner and advocate for women in sports, Lauren Fleshman offers her inspiring personal story and a rallying cry for reform of a sports landscape that is failing young female athletes....

After his bestselling home run books Why We Love Baseball and The Baseball 100, Joe Posnanski turns from the national pastime to the number one sport in America.

A definitive look at the world of professional cycling—and the doping issue surrounding this sport and its most iconic rider, Lance Armstrong....

Learn how Formula One is the world’s greatest team sport with this intimate and colorful insider’s account of what really happens on—and off—the race track, from The Athletic’s senior F1 writer who has been following the sport around the world for over a decade.

Whether running is your recreation, your religion, or just a spectator sport, Adharanand Finn’s incredible journey to the elite training camps of Kenya will captivate and inspire you....

To the Linksland is the captivating memoir of Bamberger’s golfing pilgrimage/extended honeymoon. From an all-night caddie bus on the back roads of southern Europe to Stark’s secret six-hole course in the Scottish Highlands, Bamberger takes you on a journey into the heart of golf.

Twenty-five years ago, Tiger Woods achieved the greatest feat in golf history: the “Tiger Slam.” Now, for the first time, the award-winning author of Tommy’s Honor delivers a riveting account of Tiger at his most brilliant—dominating the game in a way we will never see again.

Inside America’s preventable sports-gambling debacle.

Pull back the curtain on the most powerful position in all of sports: the Quarterback, the American equivalent of royalty, long glamorized, mythologized and worshiped.

Some 75% of American families want their kids to play sports. Athletics are training grounds for character, friendship, and connection; at their best, sports insulate kids from hardship and prepare them for adult life.

This is a complex and inspiring tale of a small town becoming a global community and an account of the ingenious and complicated ways we create a home in a changing world....

From New York Times best-selling author Lars Anderson comes a revealing portrait of the first family of American sports. What the Kennedys are to politics, the Mannings are to football....

The definitive account of Lance Armstrong's spectacular rise and fall....

In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of soccer's rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world's most popular sport - now poised to fully establish itself in the USA....

Provocative and controversial, Rhoden's Forty Million Dollar Slaves weaves a compelling narrative of Black athletes in the United States, from the plantation to their beginnings....

College football has never been more popular - or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend.....

A richly reported and provocative look at the history of women’s sports and the controversy surrounding trans athletes by a leading LGBTQ+ sports journalist....

For fans of The Boys in the Boat and In the Garden of Beasts, a pulse-pounding tale of triumph over Hitler’s fearsome Silver Arrows during the golden age of auto racing....

Fixed breaks new ground as Moses Swaibu becomes the first player ever to write openly about how he helped to fix games, revealing exactly what happens on the pitch when a match is being manipulated.

After a lifetime of writing about the professional sport, Michael Bamberger, “the poet laureate of golf” (GOLF magazine), delivers an exhilarating love letter to the amateur game as it’s played—and lived—by the rest of us....

In a world where we are having to work harder than ever before, where talk of ‘burnout’ is everywhere and where pressures increase in many areas of our lives, some of us are turning to endurance sport and extreme challenges.