A fascinating look at ESPN and its success as a brand ESPN The Company reveals the inside scoop on the biggest business story in sports, detailing the creative and innovative spirit and practices that drove the programming, products, and services of the most powerful and prominent name in sports media. The authors provide a behind-the-scenes perspective on how ESPN dealt with their many partners and how they handled mistakes and missteps along the way-from the humble beginnings of ESPN as an underrated startup to the pinnacle of their success as a major industry player. ESPN and other great organizations invest in their people. They train them. They believe that if you spend the time and resources turning talented performers into leaders, you're going to get better organizational performance and engender higher levels of commitment and sweat. ESPN The Company Explores the dedication to excellence that makes ESPN the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" Reveals how the steps ESPN has taken to excel can be applied to whatever type of business you're in Shares the lessons learned at ESPN about launching and growing a wildly successful enterprise Engaging and informative, this entertaining guide reveals how any company can benefit by embracing the best practices of ESPN.

ESPN's rise is one of the most remarkable stories about business and sports in our time, and nobody can tell it better than George Bodenheimer. It may be hard to believe, but not long ago, getting sports updates was difficult and frustrating. ESPN changed everything. George Bodenheimer knows. Initially hired to work in the mailroom, one of Bodenheimer's first jobs was to pick up sportscaster Dick Vitale at the Hartford airport and drive him to ESPN's main campus--a couple of trailers in a dirt parking lot. But as ESPN grew, so did George's status in the company. In fact, Bodenheimer played a major part in making ESPN a daily presence not just here, but all over the world. In this business leadership memoir--written with bestselling author Donald T. Phillips--Bodenheimer lays out ESPN's meteoric rise. This is a book for business readers and sports fans alike. A Best Business Book of 2015, Strategy Business

In the exclusive behind the scenes look, sports fans can unlock the fascinating history of the channel that changed the way people watch and interact with their favorite teams. It began, in 1979, as a mad idea of starting a cable channel to televise local sporting events throughout the state of Connecticut. Today, ESPN is arguably the most successful network in modern television history, spanning eight channels in the Unites States and around the world. But the inside story of its rise has never been fully told-until now. Drawing upon over 500 interviews with the greatest names in ESPN's history and an All-Star collection of some of the world's finest athletes, bestselling authors James Miller and Tom Shales take us behind the cameras. Now, in their own words, the men and women who made ESPN great reveal the secrets behind its success-as well as the many scandals, rivalries, off-screen battles and triumphs that have accompanied that ascent. From the unknown producers and business visionaries to the most famous faces on television, it's all here.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The NBA according to The Sports Guy—now updated with fresh takes on LeBron, the Celtics, and more! Foreword by Malcom Gladwell • “The work of a true fan . . . it might just represent the next phase of sports commentary.”—The Atlantic Bill Simmons, the wildly opinionated and thoroughly entertaining basketball addict known to millions as ESPN’s The Sports Guy, has written the definitive book on the past, present, and future of the NBA. From the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time, Simmons opens—and then closes, once and for all—every major pro basketball debate. Then he takes it further by completely reevaluating not only how NBA Hall of Fame inductees should be chosen but how the institution must be reshaped from the ground up, the result being the Pyramid: Simmons’s one-of-a-kind five-level shrine to the ninety-six greatest players in the history of pro basketball. And ultimately he takes fans to the heart of it all, as he uses a conversation with one NBA great to uncover that coveted thing: The Secret of Basketball. Comprehensive, authoritative, controversial, hilarious, and impossible to put down (even for Celtic-haters), The Book of Basketball offers every hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game’s finest, funniest, and fiercest chronicler.

ESPN: The Uncensored History traces the first 24-hour sports network from its inception through its evolution into a slick media outlet reaching more than 60 million homes via more than 26,000 cable providers. Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, ESPN, has blazed a stunning path of achievement with its expansive coverage of broadcast sports--spinning off into ESPN2, ESPN Classic Sports, ESPNews, and ESPN Magazine--but has also experienced its share of controversy. Along the way, this American entrepreneurial triumph has alienated on-air talent, drawn charges of racial discrimination, and seen employees accused of blatant sexual harassment. ESPN's success story is no fairy tale. Among the colorful lore and amusing anecdotes lurk serious complications and controversies. Through information gleaned from internal documents, police and court records, and interviews with network employees, on-air talent, producers, and executives, ESPN: The Uncensored History probes the inside story of America's premiere sports network. Part corporate history, part media and cultural analysis, and part expose, the book examines both the positive developments effected by the network and the bad habits it has picked up from the business it covers. This paperback reveals the most recent developments at ESPN since the publication of the hardback, including the network's aggressive reactions to the book.

From America’s premier sportswriter, the definitive, #1 New York Times bestselling biography of Joe Paterno. Joe Posnanski’s biography of the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno follows in the tradition of works by Richard Ben Cramer on Joe DiMaggio and David Maraniss on Vince Lombardi. Having gained unprecedented access to Paterno, as well as the coach’s personal notes and files, Posnanski spent the last two years of Paterno’s life covering the coach, on (and off) the field and through the scandal that ended Paterno’s legendary career. Joe Posnanski, who in 2012 was named the Best Sportswriter in America by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame, was with Paterno and his family as a horrific national scandal unfolded and Paterno was fired. Within three months, Paterno died of lung cancer, a tragic end to a life that was epic, influential, and operatic. Paterno is the fullest description we will ever have of the man’s character and career. In this honest and surprising portrait, Joe Posnanski brings new insight and understanding to one of the most controversial figures in America.

This powerfully intimate, plain-spoken memoir about fathers and sons, fortitude, and football from the face and voice of college football—Kirk Herbstreit—is not just “a window into the game, but also a peek into what makes him special: his heart” (David Shaw, head coach, Stanford University). Kirk Herbstreit is a reflection of the sport he loves, a reflection of his football-crazed home state of Ohio, where he was a high school star and Ohio State captain, and a reflection of another Ohio State football captain thirty-two years earlier: his dad Jim, who battled Alzheimer’s disease until his death in 2016. In Out of the Pocket, Herbstreit does what his father did for him: takes you inside the locker rooms, to the practice fields, to the meeting rooms, to the stadiums. Herbstreit describes how a combination of hard work, perseverance, and a little luck landed him on the set of ESPN’s iconic College GameDay show, surrounded by tens of thousands of fans who treat their Saturdays like a football Mardi Gras. He takes you into the television production meetings, on to the GameDay set, and into the broadcast booth. You’ll live his life during a football season, see the things he sees, experience every chaotic twist and turn as the year unfolds. Not to mention the relationships he’s established and the insights he’s learned from the likes of coaches and players such as Nick Saban, Tim Tebow, Dabo Swinney, and Peyton Manning, as well as his colleagues, including Chris Fowler, Rece Davis, and his “second dad,” the beloved Coach Lee Corso. Yes, Kirk Herbstreit is the undeniable face and voice of college football—but he’s also a survivor. He’s the quiet kid who withstood the collapse of his parents’ marriage. The boy who endured too many overbearing stepdads and stepmoms. The painfully shy student who always chose the last desk in the last row of the classroom. The young man who persevered through a frustrating Ohio State playing career. The new college graduate who turned down a lucrative sales job after college to pursue a “no way you’ll make it” dream career in broadcasting. Inspiring and powerful, Out of the Pocket “proves the importance of perseverance and family” (Peyton Manning).