The Big Time
How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
LIMITED TIME OFFER
Get 3 months for £0.99/mo
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.
The Big Time
Narrated by:
Sean Runnette
Buy Now for £16.99
-
Narrated by:
-
Sean Runnette
About this listen
Every decade brings change, but as Michael MacCambridge chronicles in THE BIG TIME, no decade in American sports history featured such convulsive cultural shifts as the 1970s. So many things happened during the decade—the move of sports into prime-time television, the beginning of athletes’ gaining a sense of autonomy for their own careers, integration becoming—at least within sports—more of the rule than the exception, and the social revolution that brought females more decisively into sports, as athletes, coaches, executives, and spectators. More than politicians, musicians or actors, the decade in America was defined by its most exemplary athletes. The sweeping changes in the decade could be seen in the collective experience of Billie Jean King and Muhammad Ali, Henry Aaron and Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Joe Greene, Jack Nicklaus and Chris Evert, among others, who redefined the role of athletes and athletics in American culture. The Seventies witnessed the emergence of spectator sports as an ever-expanding mainstream phenomenon, as well as dramatic changes in the way athletes were paid, portrayed, and packaged. In tracing the epic narrative of how American sports was transformed in the Seventies, a larger story emerges: of how America itself changed, and how spectator sports moved decisively on a trajectory toward what it has become today, the last truly “big tent” in American culture.
Listeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
“Michael MacCambridge is one of America’s finest chroniclers and when he told me he was turning his eye to the 1970s, the decade of my childhood, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. He delivers exactly what I hoped he would, a book brimming with nostalgia and fun, filled with all the marvelous names that shaped my life as a sports fan as well as shaping sports as we now know them.”—Joe Posnanski, bestselling author of The Baseball 100
“If you remember how great sports were in those days, THE BIG TIME will remind you, and if you doubt how great, this book will show you.”—Roy Blount, Jr., author, About Three Bricks Shy of a Load
“Michael MacCambridge’s THE BIG TIME is a meticulously researched, beautifully written and wonderfully entertaining walk down memory lane. The ‘70s were such a fascinating decade in sports and culture, and this book brings all the characters and moments to life in riveting detail. We know that time travel doesn’t exist, but this book sure comes close.”—Christine Brennan, USA Today sports columnist and author of the best-selling Inside Edge
Subjects jumped around the full spectrum which is comprehensive but you find yourself listening in on things of interest, but zoning out on others. Worth a try.
Interesting but a bit long
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.