Football

"Football is so ingrained in American society that it's hard to visualize an America without it," contends journalist Klosterman (The Nineties) in this eye-opening and entertaining cultural history of the sport. He traces the origin of modern football back to the 1958 NFL Championship game between the Colts and Giants, noting that the game's importance came not from what happened on the field but from the record-setting 45 million people who watched at home. Football, Klosterman writes, is a sport made for television, as the experience of watching on a screen, where the camera follows the ball, far exceeds attending in person. He asserts that the attraction to the sport lies in its similarities to "ancient war" and the chance it offers male athletes to prove their strength and ability. Despite the sport's apparent omnipresence, Klosterman makes a convincing case that football will go the way of horse racing and eventually decline in popularity, citing dwindling youth participation amid increased awareness of the dangers of repeated head trauma and the NFL's financial model, which continuously drives up prices for fans and advertisers. Approaching the subject with rigor and drawing on his lifelong fascination with the game, Klosterman sheds light on football's "outsized and underrated" role in shaping contemporary culture. The result is a transcendent appraisal of America's favorite sport. (Jan.)

A wide-ranging writer on his football fixation. Is our biggest spectator sport "a practical means for understanding American life"? Klosterman thinks so, backing it up with funny, thought-provoking essays about TV coverage, ethical quandaries, and the rules themselves. Yet those who believe it's a brutal relic of a less enlightened era need only wait, "because football is doomed." Marshalling his customary blend of learned and low-culture references--Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC--Klosterman offers an "expository obituary" of a game whose current "monocultural grip" will baffle future generations. He forecasts that economic and social forces--the NFL's "cultivation of revenue," changes in advertising, et al.--will end its cultural centrality. It's hard to imagine a time when "football stops and no one cares," but Klosterman cites an instructive precedent. Horse racing was broadly popular a century ago, when horses were more common in daily life. But that's no longer true, and fandom has plummeted. With youth participation on a similar trajectory, Klosterman foresees a time when fewer people have a personal connection to football, rendering it a "niche" pursuit. Until then, the sport gives us much to consider, with Klosterman as our well-informed guide. Basketball is more "elegant," but "football is the best television product ever," its breaks between plays--"the intensity and the nothingness," à la Sartre--provide thrills and space for reflection or conversation. For its part, the increasing "intellectual density" of the game, particularly for quarterbacks, mirrors a broader culture marked by an "ongoing escalation of corporate and technological control." Klosterman also has compelling, counterintuitive takes on football gambling, GOAT debates, and how one major college football coach reminds him of "Laura Ingalls Wilder's much‑loved Little House novels." A beloved sport's eventual death spiral has seldom been so entertaining. A smart, rewarding consideration of football's popularity--and eventual downfall. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.