Celebrating more than twenty-five years of the most eye-popping, mind-blowing, jump-off-the-couch-worthy sports highlights from the network that made them famous in the first place Every week for twenty-five years, ESPN's SportsCenter has collected seven days worth of the most extraordinary (or sometimes boneheaded) plays, controversial calls, last-second miracles, and strangest fans in action. Each highlight clip with its commentary is a mini-story about a game, a player, or a season. A few of the best of the best: Michael Jordan's take off from the foul line in the 1988 slam-dunk competition; Derek Jeter's foul-ball dive to help defeat the Red Sox in 2004; Christian Laettner's buzzer beater against Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Championship; Dwight Clarke completing "The Catch" in the 1982 NFC Championship; Brandi Chastain's bra-bearing victory celebration following the 1999 World Cup; and, of course, Dennis Rodman's hair. All of the trademark humor that makes ESPN the first stop and the last word for fans everywhere: razor-sharp commentary, infectious catchphrases, and unrepentant nicknaming. ESPN Plays of the Week is the first book ever to bring the nightly excitement of the most popular highlight reels in the world to the printed page.

This book traces the development and popularity of the sportscast highlight--the dominant news frame in the crowded medium of electronic sports journalism--as the primary means of communicating about sports and athletes. It explores the intricate relationships among media producers, sports leagues and organizations, and audiences, and explains that sportscast highlights are not a recent development, given their prominent use within a news context in every medium from early news film actualities and newsreels to network and cable television to today's new media platforms.

This expanded second edition traces the development and popularity of the sportscast highlight--the dominant news frame in the crowded medium of electronic sports journalism--as the primary means of communicating about sports and athletes. The book explores the intricate relationships among media producers, sports leagues and organizations, and audiences, and explains that sportscast highlights are not a recent development. They were often used within a news context in every medium--from early news film actualities and newsreels to network and cable television to today's new media platforms. New to this edition are three chapters that explore developments in sports media from cultural, economic and technological perspectives. An obsession with highlights has seen video replay increasingly used to adjudicate sporting events, marking a new level of reliance on technology. The media's quest for greater certitude and integrity corresponds with the rise of sponsorship of pro teams by gambling operators--with sports betting ads and on-screen odds now routinely appearing in sportscasts. Long-form sports documentaries have become popular, often highlighting a fascination with "firsts"--rooted in notions of human conquest over nature--that has remained an important source of sports mythmaking.

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.

Art directors need to balance both the creative and business-oriented aspects of their role to be truly successful. This book provides an inspirational and creative 'skill set' path for designers who wish to take their careers to a more ambitious level.

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! What if a boxer and a wrestler fought? Who would win? What if a fighter skilled in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tangled with a foe trained in traditional judo? These were questions that fans of combat sports asked for years, but how to settle it? The answer: mixed martial arts. In this action-packed book, you'll meet the superstars and record holders of mixed martial arts, get behind-the-scenes details about some of its most dramatic moments, and find out what the future holds for this radical hybrid sport.

This guide is truly the ultimate source for pro football trivia, esoterica, curiosities, stats, anecdotes, rivalries, facts, quotes, and recaps; just about what you'd expect from an ESPN publication. Arranged by team, each section lists the most notable games, players, and coaches in team history, and then asks intriguing questions such as: "Is Dan Marino or Bob Griese the best Miami Dolphin quarterback of all time" Marino by a hair. The Ultimate Pro Football Guide also tells you where to score the best eats and drinks in the respective teams' cities and provides such minutiae as what locals wear to game day, how many times your team has appeared on The Simpsons, and which local columnist you should read on game day. You can't ask for more from a football guide; it makes every team the home team. --Tod Nelson