Big Game
The NFL in Dangerous Times
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Narrated by:
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Joe Barrett
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By:
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Mark Leibovich
About this listen
The New York Times best seller!
From the number one New York Times best-selling author of This Town, an equally merciless probing of America's biggest cultural force, pro football, at a moment of peak success and high anxiety
Like millions of Americans, Mark Leibovich has spent more of his life tuned in to pro football than he'd care to admit. Being a lifelong New England Patriots fan meant growing up on a steady diet of lovable loserdom. That is until the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era made the Pats the most ruthlessly efficient and polarizing sports dynasty of the modern NFL, and its fans the most irritating in all of Pigskin America. Leibovich kept his obsession quiet, making a nice career for himself covering that other playground for rich and overgrown children, American politics. Still, every now and then Leibovich would reach out to Tom Brady to gauge his willingness to subject himself to a profile. He figured that the chances of Brady agreeing were a Hail Mary at best, but Brady returned Mark's call in summer 2014 and kept on returning his calls through epic Patriots Super Bowl victory and defeat, and a scandal involving Brady - Deflategate - whose grip on sports media was as profound as its true significance was ridiculous.
So began a four-year odyssey that took Mark Leibovich deeper inside the NFL than anyone has gone before. From the owners' meeting to the draft to the sidelines of crucial games, he takes in the show at the elbow of everyone from Brady to big-name owners to the cordially despised NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell. Ultimately, Big Game is a chronicle of "peak football" - the high point of the sport's economic success and cultural dominance but also the time when the dark side began to show. It is an era of explosive revenue growth but also one of creeping existential fear. Players have long joked that NFL stands for "not for long", but as the true impact of concussions becomes inescapable background noise, it's increasingly difficult to enjoy the simple glory of football without the buzzkill of its obvious consequences.
And that was before Donald Trump. In 2016, Mark's day job caught up with him, and the NFL slammed headlong into America's culture wars. Big Game is a journey through an epic storm. Through it all, Leibovich always keeps one eye on Tom Brady and his beloved Patriots, through to the 2018 Super Bowl. Pro football, this hilarious and enthralling book proves, may not be the sport America needs, but it is most definitely the sport we deserve.
One of Mother Jones’ Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2018
©2018 Mark Leibovich (P)2018 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"A gossipy, insightful and wickedly entertaining journey through the N.F.L. sausage factory...a sparkling narrative.” (The New York Times)
“A raucous, smash-mouth, first-person takedown of the National Football League, it is also the story of an aging fanboy whose reportorial eye and ear are far too acute to ignore what’s wrong with the game and the team he loves.... Mr. Leibovich understands that humor - bruising, black-and-blue humor - is the best way to attack the self-seriousness and grandiosity of the NFL. It works as well for him as it did for his comically insurgent predecessors - Dan Jenkins in Semi-Tough and Peter Gent in North Dallas Forty - making Big Game an instant classic in the pigskin oeuvre.” (Wall Street Journal)
“What we have here are 349 unflinching pages detailing the NFL’s rampant boobery.... It probably took a reporter like Leibovich to write a historic book like this. A top-flight journalist who’d gorged on a product for decades parachutes into the factory to see exactly how the product is made and who’s making it. The findings are mind-numbing, stomach-turning, and stupefying. But the product is still so delicious.” (NBCSports.com)
“The high point of any monster movie, whether you’re talking 'King Kong' or 'Jurassic Park', comes at the moment when you finally get a full view of the giant beast. You’ve caught a glimpse or two, heard a roar in the distance, but when you finally see the monster’s full immensity, it’s a sight to behold...and you wonder how in the hell your little heroes are going to survive its fury. Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times, an exceptional new behind-the-scenes book by Mark Leibovich, is a monster movie disguised as investigative journalism. Running from 2014 right on up to this year, Leibovich’s narrative presents the NFL’s owners and commissioner in all their bumbling, well-meaning, self-serving, self-satisfied glory...and shows in high definition how unprepared they were for the monster that stomped in to demolish everything they hold dear.” (Yahoo Sports)
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Story
The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth.
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Great Book
- By cap on 07-18-18
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Saban
- The Making of a Coach
- By: Monte Burke
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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As the head coach of the University of Alabama's football team, Nick Saban is perhaps the most influential - and controversial - man in the sport. Unpredictable in his professional loyalties, uncompromising in his vision, and unyielding in his pursuit of perfection, the highest-paid coach in college football has changed the face of the game. His program-building vision has delivered packed stadiums, rabid fans, legions of detractors, countless NFL draft picks, and a total of four championships.
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Narrator is awful.
- By kenneth on 08-12-15
By: Monte Burke
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Sweetness
- The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed “Sweetness” during his college football days, he became the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.
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Honest Accounting Of A Fascinating Life
- By RevInTampa on 08-19-15
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The System
- The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football
- By: Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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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. 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.
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Gripping Inside Look at an Industry to Itself
- By W Perry Hall on 01-23-14
By: Jeff Benedict, and others
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Play by Play
- Calling the Wildest Games in Sports - From SEC Football to College Basketball, the Masters and More
- By: Verne Lundquist
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, Verne Lundquist
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Verne Lundquist's remarkable broadcasting career has placed him at the center of major sporting events in America for more than 50 years, from Jack Nicklaus' final victory at the 1986 Masters to Tonya Harding's attack on Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 Olympics to the Auburn-Alabama shocker of 2013. In his first memoir, he replays highlights from his career, taking sports fans behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic moments in modern sports history.
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Decent Sorry, Bit Boring
- By Allena on 08-20-24
By: Verne Lundquist
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War Room
- The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team
- By: Michael Holley
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Belichick is one of the titans of today's game of football. Now, sports commentator and best-selling author Michael Holley follows three NFL teams - the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, and Atlanta Falcons - from training camp 2010 through the Super Bowl and into the April draft, opening a new window into Belichick's influence on the game. This one-of-a-kind exploration takes football fans behind the scenes of the most popular sport in America, with unprecedented insider access to the head coaches, scouts, trainers, and players.
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Narrator choice - HUH?
- By Ryan Mullaney on 03-25-18
By: Michael Holley
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Golden Days
- West's Lakers, Steph's Warriors, and the California Dreamers Who Reinvented Basketball
- By: Jack McCallum
- Narrated by: Jack McCallum
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Golden Days, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum uses these two teams - the Jerry West/Wilt Chamberlain/Elgin Baylor Lakers and the Stephen Curry/Kevin Durant/Draymond Green Warriors - to trace the dynamic history of the National Basketball Association, which for much of the last half century has marched memorably through the state of California. Tying together the two strands of McCallum's story is Hall of Famer West, the ferociously competitive Laker guard who later became one of the key architects of the Warriors.
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Very interesting and fun to read
- By Joe on 06-12-18
By: Jack McCallum
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12
- The Inside Story of Tom Brady's Fight for Redemption
- By: Casey Sherman, Dave Wedge
- Narrated by: Greg Baglia
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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12 is the propulsive story of this gritty comeback. It's a drama that unfolds in the locker room, the court room, and under the brightest lights in all of sports - the Super Bowl. Now for the first time, listeners will have an exclusive look into Tom Brady's experience and the NFL's shocking strangle-hold on their players. With unprecedented access to Brady himself, his teammates, and his lawyers, we will see just how a football legend went up against one of the largest corporations in the world to stage the greatest comeback in NFL history and emerge a god of the gridiron.
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He didn't do it
- By Rigid on 08-03-18
By: Casey Sherman, and others
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Endzone
- The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Endzone tells the story of how college football's most successful and respected program nearly lost it all in less than a decade and entirely of its own doing. It is a story of hubris, greed, and betrayal, a tale more suited to Wall Street than the world's top public university.
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Outstanding!
- By Justin on 12-21-15
By: John U. Bacon
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One on One
- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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After numerous beloved and best-selling sports books, John Feinstein returns to the subjects of his first 10 books, crafting a narrative of the most revealing encounters he's had. These are the coaches and athletes who know their games the best, and the legends and legendary moments that gave inherent shape to our favorite pastimes.
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Big Time Sports Stories and Bigger Egos
- By fred on 03-12-12
By: John Feinstein
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Junior Seau
- The Life and Death of a Football Icon
- By: Jim Trotter
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Tiaina Baul "Junior" Seau is widely considered one of the best linebackers ever to play the game. A 10-time All-Pro and 12-time Pro Bowl selection, Seau was picked for the NFL's All-Decade Team in the 1990s. His incredible career spanned two decades, during which time he played for the Chargers, Dolphins, and Patriots. In 2012, at the age of 43, Seau committed suicide with a gunshot wound to the chest. News of his death sent shockwaves through the NFL.
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Outstanding Book!!!
- By Sherry Jones on 01-08-16
By: Jim Trotter
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Pistol
- The Life of Pete Maravich
- By: Mark Kriegel
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete, a basketball icon for baby boomers, all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.
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Extremely Good!
- By steve on 12-12-12
By: Mark Kriegel
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Snake
- The Legendary Life of Ken Stabler
- By: Mike Freeman
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Ken "The Snake" Stabler was the embodiment of the original Men in Black - the freewheeling, hard-hitting Oakland Raiders. The league's first swashbuckling pass thrower, the mythical southpaw Southerner famous for come-from-behind drives late in the game, Stabler led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl championship in 1977.
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Great story about a childhood legend!!!
- By David Warnock on 07-18-19
By: Mike Freeman
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You Herd Me!
- I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will
- By: Colin Cowherd
- Narrated by: Colin Cowherd
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In this age of billion dollar athletic marketing campaigns, “feel good” philosophy with no connection to reality, and a Sports Media echo chamber that’s all too eager swallow whatever idiotic notion happens to be in vogue at the moment, it’s tough to find people who aren’t afraid to say what they’re really thinking.
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Great book, Repeats majority of themes from radio
- By Troy on 01-20-14
By: Colin Cowherd
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Rising Tide
- Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Dixie's Last Quarter
- By: Randy Roberts, Ed Krzemienski
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The extraordinary story of how Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and Joe Namath, his star quarterback at the University of Alabama, led the Crimson Tide to victory and transformed football into a truly national pastime. During the bloodiest years of the civil rights movement, Bear Bryant and Joe Namath - two of the most iconic and controversial figures in American sports - changed the game of college football forever.
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Love Alabama football? Read this!!
- By Miss Faulk on 07-16-15
By: Randy Roberts, and others
What listeners say about Big Game
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- William Lewis
- 10-29-18
Not exactly what I expected, but an ok listen
Was interesting but seemed more about the authors relationship with Tom Brady and the Patriots.
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- Strephon
- 12-12-18
Really good inside dope on Patriots and Tom Brady.
Also good on the gritty and notsopretty business of football. Who knew how much the loyaly fans pay to support a stadium and a team and how cavalierly they can be abandoned by owners looking for a better media market.
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- William G. Stuart
- 09-10-18
Fascinating Look behind the Shield
Wow! I pre-ordered this book, loaded it early one Thursday morning and finished it Sunday afternoon (incidentally, on my way home from the Patriots' season opener). I couldn't turn it off. This author somehow secured unprecedented access behind the scenes in NFL meetings, with the commissioner, and with key owners like Robert Kraft and Jerry Jones. He blends a lot of information into a very readable/listenable analysis of the NFL.
The book examines on-the-field issues, players safety (particularly CTE), the business side of the sport, and, as a result of the 2016 election, the spillover of politics into the pro football. It sounds like a hodge-podge of topics, but Leibovich blends them together in a compelling narrative.
Revenue projections. The politics and economics of the relocation of the Rams,Chargers, and Raiders franchises. Brady family dynamics as they relate to the QB's career, legacy, and treatment by the Patriots. Ownership power struggles. the commissionerr's relationship with owners. National-anthem protests, the president, owners, the commissioner, and the reaction of fans. It's all in here.
Jerry Jones steals the show. First, his comment on the $250 per bottle booze that he drinks. His comment was something like (remember, I listened to the book, so I can't refer back to print), "It's not the cost of the bottle itself that most people can't afford. It's what they do after consuming the bottle that gets them into financial trouble." Second, you won't believe how excited he used to become when he sold shoes. It's pretty vivid.
This book is a must-read for NFL fans.
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- Kyle Power
- 11-06-18
Oblivious Narrator
First time I have ever criticized a narrator, but this was absolutely the wrong choice. Anyone who has ever heard an interview with Leibovich knows he drips with sarcasm, disdain, and irony - so they got the most earnest narrator possible for his book, who just reads its straight off he page. Very disappointing, Leibovich should have read.
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- BJD
- 09-11-18
Excellent insider view of the NFL
This is a great look of the power and strife within the NFL In particular the patriots and the owners of the NFL teams lots of fun good reporting and a lot of tongue in cheek fun nuggets.
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- Jake Miller
- 09-29-18
Interesting but just short of great
Interesting look into the NFL but wish I had known the author was a Patriots fan beforehand. Books is very Patriots-centric and if there is one team whose media coverage has reached over saturation, it's them.
Not my favorite narrator either.
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- Randy Chinn
- 09-28-18
Great read; funny and sarcastic
Gives us a peek behind the curtain of the NFL, told with a love of the game and a disdain for the league. Mostly about football as a business, with a lot of time spent on Tom Brady. A lot like This Town, a book on the Washington D.C. political scene by the same author. Except the author loves football while thinking much less of D.C. The same narrator for both books too, which is great because he performs with a dry humor and deep sarcasm befitting the subject.
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- Write U. Arre
- 07-10-19
A Peek Behind the Curtain
This ended up being a better book than I thought. It's a gentle skewering of the Football Industrial Complex by a fan who was granted insider access to write this book. Mark Leibovich is a political writer by trade and his style -- observation with biting wit -- suits the subject matter of today’s NFL. The narrator really gets this and delivers.
You'll see the hubris of the ownership. (What is it about sports owners?!) Jerry Jones makes quite an impression, drunk on booze and pride. So does Robert Kraft, from normal rich guy upon entering the league to self-important rich guy today. Roger Goodell comes off as a less than sympathetic character, sometimes the orchestrator of his own demise. Tom Brady, who can be both thoughtful and vacuous, has football and everything else is a distant second, if there really is anything else.
Deflategate is covered, as is the major problem of CTE and concussions -- an existential crisis for the NFL. Some in the league denying the effects of head trauma are reminiscent of the Soviets denying that Chernobyl's exploding reactor was an emergency. Also making an appearance are players kneeling during the National Anthem and the league’s hamfisted way of dealing with it. And then there are the NFL "nugget chasers" -- the names you know well in media who spend all their time tweeting bits of trivial league info to the masses. What a life. What a sausage factory.
The author is a Patriots fan (by birthright), and while the Patriots get a lot of ink it isn't the egregiously fanboy type. The NFL could stand to take itself a lot less seriously. But being a billion dollar industry there’s a lot riding on the facade created by NFL Films that it’s a glorious and righteous endeavor, rather than a brutal game that chews up and then spits out young men while the overseeers make much bigger bank.
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- Josh N.
- 10-16-18
Average, overall
narrator clearly had never watched football and couldn't pronounce names. Story was too short-sighted. average overall
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- Joe
- 08-18-24
Assigned reading that I actually enjoyed
I had to read this book for a Politics of Football class, and I'm glad I did. Leibovich's sense of humor overlaps quite a bit with my own. It's not the most informative book out there, but it also never lost my interest. I'd highly recommend it, as long as you're willing to listen to the perspective of a Patriots fan.
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