Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport

The fifth edition of Fair and Foul explores America’s love of sport, just as it reveals sport’s darker side—the influence of big business, corruption, price gouging, political maneuvering, gender bias, media grandstanding, and more.

The new edition features revisions and updates throughout, including new information on sexuality as a divisive factor in sport, eating disorders and other health problems after retiring from sports, the continued rise of sports marketing power in China, and the impact of budget disparities among Division I schools. New case studies include sports injuries in professional football; what the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium means for the team owners, taxpayers, and fans; and more. Chapter Eight has been significantly revised to focus further on race, class, and gender issues as they relate to the uneven playing field in sports.

D. Stanley Eitzen shares examples from both famous and lesser-known events from professional, college, and school sports, including depictions of well-known coaches and players, to give us a deeper understanding of what sport means to us and how it shapes our everyday world. Ideal for sparking classroom discussion, Fair and Foul has become a beloved book for students of sociology of sport, American society, and other courses.