2007-02-02 Insightful ticket into the finances of NFL football

Baseball may be the Great American Pastime, but professional football is America's passion. With revenues in the billions of dollars, massive TV audiences thirsting for its product and merchandise flying off the shelves in thousands of stores, the National Football League is a textbook example of how to build and maintain a thriving pro sports league. While professional baseball, basketball and hockey have all experienced labor strife and endured difficult financial times, the NFL has largely avoided such crippling problems. That's mainly because of its salary cap and a revenue-sharing system that benefits teams in smaller media markets as well as teams in major metropolitan cities. In the NFL, owners and players consider themselves partners in an enormously successful enterprise, rather than operating as greedy adversaries trying to squeeze every penny from each other. Like any other multi-million dollar corporation, the NFL succeeds because of smart management and foresight. We believe that both the casual fan and the rabid NFL loyalist will appreciate author Mark Yost's expert examination of the league's economic infrastructure and behind-the-scenes politics. Highly recommended.