Sports books endangered? I dissent
A popular article’s claim that the genre is in trouble goes too far.
Esquire this month posted a piece by writer Jordan Teicher titled "What Happened to All the Sports Books?" The writer makes the case that nonfiction sports books are a genre in decline, citing the fact that authors have a harder time breaking through to the bestseller lists.
It's a well-written piece but I think it reaches too far for the conclusion it wants to make. Producing a blockbuster hit is hard, maybe harder than ever, but that doesn't mean there isn't room in the big tent of publishing for a sports tale well told.
Teicher interviewed Michael Lewis for his piece. The author of "Moneyball" and "The Blind Side," both runaway best sellers, says that "Moneyball" was so successful that it obliterated his plans for a follow-up book. The achievements of the Oakland Athletics' major and minor league players would be less compelling as a subject after "Moneyball" and its film adaptation – which starred Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman – gained such wide exposure.
Being a victim of your own success is a problem many authors would sign up for.
Lewis has not written another sports book since "The Blind Side" was released in 2016. Why not? "The simple answer," Teicher writes, "is that Lewis hasn’t discovered a sports story worthy of another book. The more complicated answer is that sports media has changed drastically in the last two decades, draining such books of their significance."
My money is on the simple answer.
Teicher describes the proliferation of sports content available to fans – including media produced by the athletes themselves, concluding that it's harder for authors to make the case that their books will hold their own in the attention economy.
"It irritates me immensely," Lewis tells Teicher. "I keep thinking a sports story is going to walk into my life."
When a sports story worth pursuing does occur to Lewis, raise your hand if you think publishers won't return his phone calls.
Top scribes still scribbling
Sure, it’s tough to get rich by writing a sports book. But some authors at the top of the pyramid, such as Jeff Pearlman, David Maraniss and John Feinstein, seem to do pretty well. The great Sally Jenkins has a new book out. Jonathan Eig, Joe Posnanski, Christine Brennan, Rick Reilly and Michael Bamberger are other prolific authors in the sports genre.
Teicher’s article also featured Chris Herring, a writer for Sports Illustrated who wrote “Blood in the Garden,” a 2022 book about the bully-ball New York Knicks of the 1990s.
Herring describes the hard work involved in researching and writing the book while keeping up with the demands of his day job.
Hasn’t that been the author’s dilemma forever? I’ve been reading Paris Review interviews with authors since the days when Red Smith and Arthur Daley were still writing columns for the New York Times, and the struggle between the imperatives of art and commerce likely dates back to before Shakespeare.
There are many levels of publishing, with plenty of room in the middle ranks for authors with a story to tell. Two writers I know in Buffalo, Budd Bailey and Greg Tranter, have just released a new book, “The Buffalo Bills: An Illustrated History of a Storied Team.” I hope that it racks up Michael Lewis-like sales, but if that doesn’t happen, it will still find a robust audience.
It’s true that there is more competition than ever for our eyes and ears as consumers. It’s easier to sit through a documentary about Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell or Arnold Schwarzenegger than to read a book about them, and ESPN, Netflix, HBO and others continue to churn out the docs.
Media reports last year showed that sales of print books grew in 2021 – perhaps due to Covid quarantining – but that Americans reported they were reading fewer books in a year.
I’m not convinced that the challenges of the publishing industry have any special purchase when it comes to the sports genre.
