{"product_id":"book-1rq4","title":"BAM!","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow John Madden-never the winningest coach, the most polished broadcaster, or the loudest executive in the room-became the NFL's most influential figure, fueling the league's rise from the broadcast booth to Madison Avenue to the \u003cem\u003eMadden NFL\u003c\/em\u003e video-game franchise, while quietly grappling with football's human cost, a reckoning born the day opposing player Darryl Stingley was paralyzed on his watch\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn Madden retired abruptly from coaching in 1979, at forty-two years old-five months after receiver Darryl Stingley's paralyzing injury against his Raiders. That moment would never leave him. And he had no intention of entering broadcasting. Yet within a decade, he would become the most recognizable voice in football and the catalyst behind the NFL's explosion into America's most powerful sports league.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eBAM!\u003c\/em\u003e, veteran sports journalist Scott Howard-Cooper reveals how Madden, newly removed from the sideline after Stingley's injury, recast himself at exactly the right moment. Television reshaped sports, cable networks emerged, and the NFL needed a translator to turn complex strategy into entertainment. Madden didn't just analyze football; he \u003cem\u003ereinvented \u003c\/em\u003ehow it was explained, watched, and loved. From innovations like the telestrator and pre-game film study to making Thanksgiving football a ritual, Madden changed sports television forever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut \u003cem\u003eBAM!\u003c\/em\u003e goes beyond the booth, tracing Madden's influence through advertising, network wars, labor crises, concussion debates, and the birth of the \u003cem\u003eMadden NFL\u003c\/em\u003e video-game franchise-which reshaped gaming and brought football to new generations. Even as he built the game into a cultural juggernaut, Madden wrestled with its human cost. Along the way, he emerges as brilliant, instinctive, anxious, conflicted, and profoundly devoted to the game.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eBAM!\u003c\/em\u003e is the story of how one rumpled, affable man became the connective tissue between football's rise and its reckoning-between spectacle and player safety, promotion and responsibility-and why the NFL cannot stop invoking his name.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster Audio","offers":[{"title":"Audio CD","offer_id":67151065186608,"sku":"101rq4","price":44.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audiobook [BD]","offer_id":67151065219376,"sku":"BD1rq4","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-1rq4","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}