Michael MacCambridge

I didn't know that much about Lamar Hunt prior to reading this biography. I knew him primarily as the guy the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup soccer tournament and trophy is named after. I knew they had re-named the Open Cup after him due to his work to bring soccer to main stream USA, but I didn't realize just what impact he had on American Spector sports that take up so much entertainment time/value of so many people.

Turns out Hunt was the of an oil Barron who could have done most anything he show more wanted to. Most of what he wanted to do was play American football.

He went to a boarding school were he made the football team because daddy was a large donor. He did well enough there to make the team at Southern Methodist (SMU) but rode the bench.

Upon graduation he went to queen for dad in the oil business but his love for sports was so strong he wanted desperately to be involved past his playing career. He tried to purchase a second NFL team, with dad's money, but the good old boys declined. He found enough others that he started the American Football League ( AFL). When his Dallas Texans couldn't compete with the cowboys he was forced to move to Kansas City and rename them the Chiefs. For the rest of his life the Chiefs would be his primary love, his first wife lost to the team.

He was the one who coined the name Super Bowl, and after 10 years his Chiefs one that game, and the AFL merged with the NFL.

He fell in love with soccer and was instrumental in founding the NASL of the 60s-80s most known for bringing Pelé to the American public.

At the same time he worked on professionalising tennis. As with the Olympics at the time Tennis claimed to be ammature, but was in name only, but the good old boys again when against him and again he started his own leauge the World Championship of TENNIS (WCT). Just when that leauge was starting to make a profit the players revolted and started their own tournament as the PFA had in golf years earlier.

After NASL folded his b love for driver continued never missing a world cup with ridiculous travel schedules to make as mentioned games as possible. Thankfully his second wife loved games as much as he so he could jet set while enjoying her company.

His family lost most of their fortune during the silver crisis of the 80s, Lamar had to sell his mantion in Dallas and get a regular house, but they still had their penthouse at Arrowhead stadium in Kansas City. The silver crisis didn't hit him as hard as his brothers.

He was instrumental in bringing the World Cup to the states in '94. Part of that deal was to establish a Division I Leauge in the USA. Learning from his mistakes in NASL he was the one who came up with the single entity system that MLS is so known for. Most of the football ⚽ world derided it, but it allowed soccer to not fold. Those first years were hard with many "owners" opting out after a few years due to the cysts of ruining a soccer team in a football 🏈 market . Eventually only 3 owners were left for 10 teams. But they made it and today, though still not the highest quality of play, MLS us the most competive leauge in the world, and has like 6 of the 10 most valuable teams.

He ends his life much as he loves it, watching the Kanas City Chiefs, though on TV in a hospital rather than at his beloved Arrowhead. Last thing he tells his son, make sure mom goes to the Super Bowl to keep her streak going of being at more Super Bowls than any other woman. show less

I really enjoyed this fabulous book. It makes the story of the NFL come alive, particularly through the period of the 50's, 60's and early 70's. I found the later chapters a little more episodic, but I think the author does a tremendous job of dealing with infromation about key games, key characters and wider trends in the sport and business of the NFL. For a work founded on comprehensive research and academic attention to detail and sources it is incredibly readable.

Reading it from the show more perspective of an Englishman I did find a couple of sentences slightly bizarre - do you American's really talk about teams having 'losingest' runs? Although I can see the logic of a team that is hard to 'defense' against... I loved these little quirks (if in-fact they are quirks and not just my cultural ignorance!) and really appreciated the direct yet never dull writing. The wider socio-economic musing and cultural commentary was welcome and stimulating. However, again - from the English perspective - I did find the fervour of the claims and juxtapositions vis-a-vis Baseball slightly heavy-handed. This may again be due to my ignorance of the importance of Baseball to everyday Americans before the rise of American Football.

I would recommend this book heartily to any fan of sports writing. show less

MacCambridge has written an outstanding history of modern professional football known as the National Football League. The primary theme of the book is how football has eclipsed other sports, specifically baseball, to become America's game.

The book starts out with the Baltimore Colts defeat in overtime of the New York Giants on December 28, 1958 in the National Football League championship game. The game was televised and is called the Greatest Game Ever Played, partially because it show more catapulted the NFL into the national spotlight and sent the league on its way to be the dominant sport in American culture.

For the most part this is a very linear history of the Nation Football League, and a very well done one. While it is about the game itself, it's more about the business of professional football and the importance of decisions made by those who ran it leading to a thriving game and a thriving business enterprise. Much is discussed about the first commissioner Bert Bell who held a motley collection of owners together and strived for parity in the league, and Pete Rozelle who help reap millions in television revenue, fostered the revenue sharing agreement between big market and small market teams keeping competitive balance, and maintaining relative labor peace compared to other sports.

Another very interesting and pivotal part of NFL history was its competition with the American Football League in the 1960's and how a group of maverick owners created a rival, viable league of its own and how the eventual merger of the NFL and AFL came about. Interestingly, Lamar Hunt, late owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, was the pivotal figure in both the creation of the AFL and the eventual merger. The merger, in fact, made the NFL even stronger.

There are a few key themes in this book about why professional football became the dominant sport it is today. First, and foremost, is television. The game of football, more so than baseball, is a sport made for television. Television thrust the game into the national spotlight and keeps it there. Second is parity. While there have been some dominant teams in the league and a few dynasties, the revenue sharing, scheduling, and now salary caps which keep the teams on a somewhat even playing field has helped maintain interest in the game. Third, labor peace, relative to other sports, has also helped the game thrive. And finally, the owners and commissioners who have lead the league have been visionary. In these pages you meet the legendary coaches and owners like George Halas, Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi, Wellington Mara, Art Modell, Art Rooney, and others who made the NFL what it is today.

Overall, this is an outstanding history of the modern NFL and I highly recommend it. show less

This was the best book I read in 2006. It was one of the few non-fiction books that I just could not put down. Not only is it well researched but the way that McCambridge has weaved together each tale to make up the larger story of the NFL is amazing. Unless you live under a rock, you know what a huge part professional football plays in our society and this book tells you exactly how and why it came to be this way. I came away with a very good sense of what each league commissioner brought show more to the organization, as well as the history of many of the franchises that remain today. I recommend this to anyone that has even a slight interest in the NFL. show less