An explosive and revelatory portrait reported from deep behind the scenes of big-time NCAA football: the passion, the thrilling action--and the shocking realities that lie beneath this colossal, multibillion-dollar business College football has never been more popular, or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch every weekend on television. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars of television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year, the highest paid, more than $5 million. But behind this glittering success are the darker truths: "athlete-students" working essentially full-time jobs with no share in the oceans of money, who often don't graduate and end their careers with broken...
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