National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer

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National cultures are built around national pastimes. How we play helps define who we think we are. This is the story of two great sports— America’s game and the world’s game. Baseball is America’s game, a national obsession that remains largely North American, even though it bills its championship as the World Series. Soccer is the world’s game, a sport over which no nation can claim ownership. Its World Cup is truly international and the ultimate yardstick of national self-esteem. National Pastime is the first in-depth, cross-cultural comparison of these sporting passions and the megabusinesses they have become. In National Pastime, Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist examine how organizational structures have made Major League Baseball a profitable business (notwithstanding common claims made by the owners) while soccer leagues around the world struggle to break even. They weave a rich variety of stories, anecdotes, and photos into their account of how these games became businesses , and how these businesses have adapted to the demands of fans. The authors show how early administrators of baseball and soccer leagues were influenced by the parallel developments of each sport and, in particular, how the concept of the league was invented by American baseball and transplanted first to English soccer, and then to the rest of the world. In their final chapter, the authors discuss the lessons that baseball and soccer can learn from each other today. In some cases, Continued on back ...