{"product_id":"2940169264555","title":"The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAN EXPLOSIVE AND REVELATORY PORTRAIT REPORTED FROM DEEP BEHIND THE SCENES OF BIG-TIME NCAA COLLEGE FOOTBALL: THE PASSION, THE THRILLING ACTION-AND THE SHOCKING REALITIES THAT LIE BENEATH THIS COLOSSAL, MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCOLLEGE FOOTBALL has never been more popular-or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut behind this glittering success are darker truths: \"athlete-students\" working essentially full-time jobs with no share in the oceans of money; players who often don't graduate and end their careers with broken bodies; \"janitors\" who clean up player misconduct; football \"hostesses\" willing to do whatever it takes to land a top recruit; seven-figure black box recruiting slush funds. And this: Despite the millions of dollars pouring into the game, 90 percent of major athletic departments still lose money. Yet schools remain caught up in an ever-escalating \"arms race\"-at the expense of academic scholarships, facilities and faculty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCelebrated investigative journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian were granted unprecedented access during the 2012 season to programs at the highest levels across the country at a time of convulsive change in college football. Through dogged reporting, they explored every nook and cranny of this high-powered machine, and reveal how it operates from the inside out. The result: the system through the eyes of athletic directors and coaches, high-flying boosters and high-profile TV stars, five-star recruits and tireless NCAA investigators and the kids on whom the whole vast enterprise depends.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth a celebration of the power and pageantry of NCAA football and a groundbreaking, thought-provoking critique of its excesses, \u003ci\u003eThe System\u003c\/i\u003e is the definitive book on the college game.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47156215611632,"sku":"2940169264555","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940169264555_p0.jpg?v=1763677500","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940169264555","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}