College Sports tell the intriguing story of the success—and excess—of American college sports from their inception to today. The book offers a chronological account of the popularity, success, and continued challenges of college sports, and history reveals how college sports enjoy a symbiotic relationship with universities. Reform and a return to a purely amateur model have rarely been a compelling option for those institutions that are successful in commercialised big-time college sports. At the same time, most student-athletes compete in a very different model. And despite their progressive posturing, colleges have been slow to fully adopt civil rights and social justice issues. When full participation was finally extended to women and minorities, it generally meant a move away from the amateur model into a commercial enterprise.

By examining key events at specific universities, athletic conferences, and the NCAA, College Sports trace how the media and sports marketing have created an incredibly successful financial model for schools in big-time conferences. Yet this model has also created a precarious fiscal situation for hundreds of other institutions. This provocative and refreshing take on sports in American universities provides the context in which to understand—and improve upon—the current landscape of intercollegiate athletics.

January 2025 | Hardback 560 pages | ISBN 9781421450094 | Price £33.00