Audiobook13 hours
The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports
Written by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg
Narrated by Shaun Grindell
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
This is a sports and business tale of how money, ambition, and twenty-five years of drama remade an ancient institution into a twenty-first-century entertainment empire. No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold.
Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly two hundred countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul.
Deeply researched and drawing on one hundred exclusive interviews, including the key decision makers at every major English team, The Club is the definitive and wildly entertaining narrative of how the Premier League took over the world.
Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly two hundred countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul.
Deeply researched and drawing on one hundred exclusive interviews, including the key decision makers at every major English team, The Club is the definitive and wildly entertaining narrative of how the Premier League took over the world.
Author
Joshua Robinson
Joshua Robinson is the European sports correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated.
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Reviews for The Club
Rating: 4.54878047804878 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
41 ratings1 review
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Seems written to a very specific audience: Americans who just recently noticed that the Premiership is on TV most mornings on NBC/NBCSN. If you have little to no understanding of how the most popular football league began or if you are curious about how fortunes were made and lost by the billionaires who own the top clubs, you might find this worth your time. However, if you've been watching football for years, and/or if you support a team in the PL you're unlikely to pick up anything more than a couple of curious factoids. A very quick and easy read.