The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire by John Eisenberg is the epic tale of the five owners who shepherded the NFL through its tumultuous early decades and built the most popular sport in America.
The National Football League is a transcending, particularly American mammoth making $14 billion in yearly income. Yet, it was not always a triumph.
In The League, John Eisenberg centers around the spearheading athletes who kept the group alive during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s,when its difficulties were numerous and its endurance was not ensured. At that point, school football, baseball, boxing, and horseracing ruled America’s sports scene.
Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell had faith in professional football when not many others did and at last succeeded because at critical points each forfeited short-term success for his group for the longer-term good of the league.
A history of a sport and an amazing story of business inventiveness, The League is an essential read for football fans.
John Eisenberg Books
| The Longest Shot: Lil E. Tee and the Kentucky Derby: Lil E. Tee and Kentucky Derby | (2002) | Shop at Amazon |
| Native Dancer, the Grey Ghost Hero of a Golden Age | (2003) | Shop at Amazon |
| The Great Match Race: When North Met South in America’s First Sports Spectacle | (2006) | Shop at Amazon |
| That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory | (2009) | Shop at Amazon |
| My Guy Barbaro: A Jockey’s Journey Through Love, Triumph, and Heartbreak | (2009) | Shop at Amazon |
| Ten-Gallon War: The NFL’s Cowboys, the AFL’s Texans, and the Feud for Dallas’s Pro Football Future | (2012) | Shop at Amazon |
| The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken Jr., and Baseball’s Most Historic Record | (2017) | Shop at Amazon |
| The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire | (2018) | Shop at Amazon |
About the NFL
The NFL was formed in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA). The league would later rename itself the National Football League for the 1922 season. After initially determining champions through end-of-season standings, the league switched to a playoff system in 1933. The league had the championship culminate with the NFL Championship Game until 1966.
Following an agreement to merge the NFL with the rival American Football League (AFL), the Championship game was replaced by the Super Bowl. The first Super Bowl was held in 1967 and has remained as the final game of each NFL season since the merger was completed in 1970.
About the Author
John Eisenberg is the author of nine previous books, including That First Season and Ten-Gallon War, and a former sportswriter for the Baltimore Sun. He also has written for Sports Illustrated and Smithsonian Magazine. Eisenberg lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Other Books You May Like
Ten-Gallon War: The NFL’s Cowboys, the AFL’s Texans, and the Feud for Dallas’s Pro Football Future by John Eisenberg: During the 1960s, closely following the “Greatest Game Ever Played,” pro football started to prosper the nation over—except in Texas, where high school and college football remained the most popular.
Then, in an impossible arrangement of occasions, two youthful oil moguls began their own pro football teams in Dallas exactly the same year: the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, and, as a component of another upstart association intended to upset the NFL’s hang on the game, the Dallas Texans of the AFL; and a bitter feud was born.
America’s Game: The NFL at 100 by Jerry Rice and Randy O. Williams: This book celebrates the first 100 years of the National Football League, interweaving history, personal stories, memories, and observations of some of its greatest players, coaches, and advocates.
That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory by John Eisenberg: The story of a team, a town, and a leader: Vince Lombardi’s first year as head coach of the Green Bay Packers, and how he turned them into a powerhouse.
The League Podcasts
What Happened to that Guy?: John Eisenberg explores the post-football life of various former Ravens in his podcast.
The Gridiron and Beyond: Bob Socci sits down with John Eisenberg to discuss the league’s early history and the key figures, on and off the field, who helped a long-ago struggling semipro circuit become a present-day monolith that dominates American sports.