Book Review: Game Over

Game OverGame Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down
by Dave Zirin, Fiction (Released January, 2013)
Bottom Line: Skip it.
Summary:
 Zirin, a sportswriter for The Nation and SI.com, explores how politics has recently begun to infiltrate the previously apolitical sports world.
My Thoughts: I think I totally missed the boat on what this book was actually about when I picked it up. I thought it would be about “sports politics” (i.e. the politics of the NCAA and putting on the Olympics), and he does touch on that kind of stuff briefly. But, this book was actually about real (vs. sports) politics becoming more connected to the sports world and how athletes SHOULD use their platform to speak out about politics. He covers comparisons of the recent NFL and NBA lockouts to Occupy Wall Street and the Wisconsin fight over labor laws, the Penn State scandal, LGBT tolerance in sports, and the big business of building pro sports stadiums, among other things. As a fan, I enjoy watching sports for the love of the game and to escape the pressures of daily life…and, I get totally turned off when politics gets shoved in my face at a sporting event or while watching one on TV. So…I essentially disagree with the entire premise of Zirin’s book and was annoyed to be reading it. I also felt like he was ranting at me the entire time and that, for a sports journalist, he came across as hating sports. The one article I did find 
interesting was about the debate over whether NCAA athletes playing revenue-generating sports should be compensated in some way given the money they make for their schools. This was the type of topic I expected to read about in this book. Other than that, I couldn’t wait to be finished with Game Over. Don’t waste one second of your time on this one.

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