"Danielson brings to this book a life-long interest in sports as a
dedicated fan. He provides an account that will inform and entertain all
readers interested in the phenomenon of professional teams." James
Quirk, author of Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team SportsMost
books that study professional sports concentrate on teams and leagues.
In contrast, Home Team studies the connections between professional team
sports in North America and the places where teams play. It examines the
relationships between the four major professional team sports baseball,
basketball, football, and hockey and the cities that attach their names,
their hearts, and their increasing amount of tax dollars to big league
teams. From the names on their uniforms to the loyalties of their fans,
teams are tied to the places in which they play. Nonetheless, teams,
like other urban businesses, are affected by changes in their
environments like the flight of their customers to suburbs and changes
in local political climates. In Home Team, professional sports are
scrutinized in the larger context of the metropolitan areas that
surround and support them.Michael Danielson is particularly interested
in the political aspects of the connections between professional sports
teams and cities. He points out that local and state governments are now
major players in the competition for franchises, providing increasingly
lavish publicly funded facilities for what are, in fact, private
business ventures. As a result, professional sports enterprises, which
have insisted that private leagues rather than public laws be the proper
means of regulating games, have become powerful political players,
seeking additional benefits fromgovernment, often playing off one city
against another. The wide variety of governmental responses reflects the
enormous diversity of urban and state politics in the United States and
in the Canadian cities and provinces that host professional teams.Home
Team collects a vast amount of data, much of it difficult to find
elsewhere, including information on the relocation of franchises,
expansion teams, new leagues, stadium development, and the political
influence of the rich cast of characters involved in the ongoing
contests over where teams will play and who will pay. Everyone who is
interested in the present condition and future prospects of professional
sports will be captivated by this informative and provocative new book.
