The big time by Michael MacCambridge

Every decade brings change, but as Michael MacCambridge chronicles in this book, 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. 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.