What people are saying about
Jon Morgan's Glory for Sale - Fans, Dollars, and the New NFL

"Jon Morgan has written a fascinating and carefully crafted book about the inner workings of professional sports. Few of us have ever been privy to the secret meetings, the betrayal, the calculated lies, and the greed at work whenever a professional sports franchise tears free from a city. This book is more than the tale of Art Modell's apostasy. It is the frightening blueprint for a society whose religion-sports-is founded on a single commandment: Thou shalt win."
--TIM GREEN, author of The Dark Side of the Game and sports commentator for ABC's "Good Morning America," "NFL on Fox," and NPR's "Morning Edition

"Morgan's thorough account will likely have fans questioning their loyalties."
--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"Baltimore Sun reporter Jon Morgan, who helped pioneer a new beat in newspapers called sports business, has written a book weaving together the economics, politics, and sports trends surrounding the heated public policy debate of taxpayer-subsidized stadiums. Glory For Sale is no jock-sniffing book. Morgan builds it with well-researched political anecdotes to trace the football legacies-and eventual collision course-of the two great NFL cities of Baltimore and Cleveland. And he enhances the stadium debate with superb profiles of the stadium and political players, including former Browns and current Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell, former Colts owner Bob Irsay, Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White, and former Baltimore Mayor and Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer."
--DENVER POST

"Morgan's very good . . . account of the Browns' controversial move to Baltimore reveals much about the greed and mendacity of pro football owners, and the madness of cities that monetarily compete to attract their teams. Although the book focuses on football, Baltimore and Cleveland, its lessons are applicable to other pro sports-and other cities."
--SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

"Morgan paints a stinky scenario of back room deals, broken promises, and fans held hostage for publicly funded stadiums that do little for the taxpayers. Every sports fan should read this, if only to fully realize how little they matter in the world of professional sports. An important book."
--BOOKLIST

"Necessary for developing an understanding of today's NFL."
--LIBRARY JOURNAL

"Jon Morgan plots the eerily parallel and rich football traditions of these fading industrial burgs [Baltimore and Cleveland]. The profiles of key football and political figures are woven against a backdrop of the NFL's emergence as America's No. 1 spectator sport."
--FT. LAUDERDALE SUN-SENTINEL

"Glory for Sale is a fascinating read. Morgan manages to penetrate the personalities and structures of the NFL in a lucid and compelling fashion while providing a probing and critical analysis of city stadium subsidies, franchise movements, and the business of football. To learn about how the leagues cultivate their monopoly power and about the capricious, greedy characters behind the scenes, there is no more entertaining and edifying account. Here Morgan tells the story of how the old Cleveland Browns transmogrified into the Baltimore Ravens. His tale is carried along by an eminently readable, flowing narrative, over the course of which we step inside National Football League business history."
--ANDREW ZIMBALIST, Smith College professor of economics and author of
"Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism and Conflict in Big-time College Sports," on recommending "Glory for Sale" as one of the breakthrough sports books of the 1990s

"Team relocation is a controversial and complex issue that hotly divides avid sports fans. Jon Morgan's Glory for Sale insightfully lays out the importance of stadium economics in building a competitive team, and it clearly, easily explains why teams move. It is one of the best analyses I've read."
--PAUL J. MUCH, Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, financial advisor on sports economics to teams, leagues, stadiums, and government agencies

"In Glory for Sale, Jon Morgan lends his considerable talent and experience to a masterful presentation of the issues, events, and personalities leading to the current problems plaguing professional sports. While never losing sight of the forest while looking at some interesting trees, his work helps us to understand how Mr. Modell's move to Baltimore happened. This case is the shape of things to come and the book is an important read for everybody interested both in how pro sports got where it is and where it is going."
--RODNEY FORT, co-author of Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team Sports

"The Cleveland Browns move to Baltimore was-and still is-a highly emotional issue.. . Morgan's book examines the Browns' move from the surprising beginning . . . to its bitter end. It's a juicy, entertaining read that has the potential to open Clevelanders' wounds."
--CLEVELAND MAGAZINE

"Now that the NFL has accepted Alfred Lerner's bid of $530 million for the Cleveland Browns, it is a proper time to see how Cleveland and the league has arrived at this point. And that is exactly what Jon Morgan does in his extremely detailed, evenhanded account of the Cleveland Browns move to Baltimore. Morgan takes the complicated story of the Browns move and describes it in an easy-to-understand fashion. The story, familiar to most football fans, involves the Colts move to Indianapolis, Baltimore's shame from that loss and determination to get another NFL team, the rise and fall of Modell's influence in Cleveland, Baltimore's crusade for an expansion team, Cleveland's decision to build new facilities for the Indians and Cavaliers, the courting of the Browns by Baltimore and, finally, Cleveland's last-minute, desperate attempts to save the Browns. Despite the intricate story, Morgan never loses the reader and, furthermore, gives the reader access to every important meeting, discussion, or letter in this process that lasted two decades. (Grade: A-)"
--ARMCHAIR QB

"Glory for Sale is full of the sort of detail most football fans only dream of accessing...It enables readers to become part of the franchise process, to feel as though they were actually there. Jon Morgan's style is fluid and literary, and the book, however intricate, reads as easily as a novel. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the world of sports, and for anyone with a solid appreciation for plain old good writing."
--MM KERN@AOL.COM from Chicago

"The author details a highly entertaining story of how it all happened, complete with backroom details and public embarrassments. He does a magnificent job of somehow tying together a team owner's greed, urban decay, football rivalries, Baltimore's loss, Baltimore's theft, fan loyalty, and stadium economics into a fascinating, well-told tale. And best of all - it's all true!
--FELDBERG@CS.JHU.EDU