Dan Pompei Releases The Book The Football 100

A recent installment of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, “The Minister of Defense” (now streaming on ESPN+), chronicled the extraordinary career, complicated life, and profound spiritual journey of NFL Hall of Famer and Super Bowl champion Reggie White. Now, ESPN introduces a new podcast – Through the Flames: Reggie’s Church – which focuses on one unfortunate in White’s life – the mysterious 1996 burning of his church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

In the midst of a rash of mid-1990s church burnings across the United States, White’s Inner City Church boasts a growing interracial congregation, and after the building is firebombed and reduced to ashes, White believes the attack is the work of racists. The NFL legend and pastor uses his platform to maintain public pressure on the investigation, even as the sensitive nature of the crime causes government officials to tread carefully. As the story unfolds, questions are raised about the church’s financial status, along with the possibility of arson. The podcast brings the story to life through the voices of those involved with the church and the investigation – and in the process, draws a powerful parallel between these ugly incidents and the deeper challenges the nation still faces.

A three-time Emmy Award winner, Courtland Bragg is a Director and Producer at NFL Films, the film/television production company of the National Football League. In addition to co-directing the ESPN 30 for 30 “The Minister of Defense” and producing /hosting the Through the Flames podcast, Courtland was a director on multiple seasons of Hard Knocks for HBO, All or Nothing for Amazon and A Football Life for NFL Network.

Prime Video introduces the new documentary Giannis: The Marvelous Journey, the definitive first-person account of NBA mega-star Giannis Antetokounmpo’s odyssey from an impoverished childhood in Greece as the son of Nigerian immigrants to the very top of the basketball world.

Before becoming one of the NBA’s most dominating performers (a two-time league MVP who led the Milwaukee Bucks to a championship in 2021), Giannis’ path began on the streets of Athens, where he was raised on the margins of society, by parents who immigrated from Nigeria in search of a better life. After finding images of NBA stars in an Internet café, Giannis picked up a basketball. From there unfolded an epic journey, ultimately landing him in his adopted home of Milwaukee, where he emerged as “The Greek Freak,” a superstar who transformed the game with his athleticism and versatility, all the while striving to use the memory of the loss he endured along the way to spearhead an impact far beyond the court. Giannis: The Marvelous Journey features interviews with Giannis and his entire family as well as basketball luminaries Jason Kidd, Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday, Kenny Smith, Vin Baker Ernie Johnson and more. It marks the first time the family has given first-person accounts on their collective journey.

Of Greek descent herself, Emmy Award-winning director Kristen Lappas visited Greece many times in the making of this film, getting back to her own family roots. The daughter of Steve Lappas (former basketball coach at both Villanova and Manhattan College, and now an analyst for CBS Sports in New York), Kristen produced eight installments of ESPN’s acclaimed 30 for 30 series, and directed the 30 for 30 multi-part series Dream On about the 1996 gold-medal-winning U.S. women’s basketball team. She won Emmys for her short sports docs Blackfeet Boxing: Not Invisible and A Mountain to Climb and her short film Arthur was adapted into a movie starring Mark Wahlberg and premieres in 2024.

While Eric Cogorno is best known for the golf lessons he gives to more than 400,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel and Instagram, he’s actually spent nearly 20 years building a reputation as a highly respected Performance Golf Coach. He intuitively combines the art and science of golf to teach to each individual student (seemingly) simple strategies that lead to cutting handicaps in half and significantly improving performance for golfers of all levels. Since 2018, Eric Cogorno has taken his business from $80K a year teaching one-on-one lessons by the hour in Bethlehem, PA, to a multimillion dollar, global golf instruction brand using these same skills and strategies. In the process, he was able to also transform his entire professional and personal lifestyle as well as the golf of hundreds of thousands of people. As a successful entrepreneur and personal development enthusiast, Eric is on a mission to help people understand the profound value of goal setting, help them get clear about their goals and provide tactical strategies for them to achieve those goals.

Soccer has always been the pride and passion of everyday people. So when a small-time corporate raider with no connection to soccer somehow acquired Manchester United, only to raise prices and make billions, it affected the sport in unexpected ways.

In the new book, THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CASH MACHINE (Pan Macmillan, January 23, 2024), Chris Blackhurst tells the riveting story of how the Glazer family bought Manchester United, and everything that followed. Meticulously researched, Blackhurst uses rich details to tell share how the Glazer family seized ownership of the Premier League’s jewel, and propelled its value to more than 5 billion pounds.

The official sportsbook of ESPN, ESPN BET, delivers the ultimate betting experience with live in-game wagering, cross-sport parlays, moneylines, futures, teasers and plenty of prop bets. Just in time for the Super Bowl, Tyler Fulghum - one of ESPN’s resident sports betting experts - lays it all on the line with his predictions, tips, fun prop bet ideas and more.

In ESPN’s short film Black Girls Play (which won Best Short Doc at the Tribeca Festival), filmmakers Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster chronicle the origins of the hand games that young Black girls have played for generations, and their influence on music, dance, and community all across the American creative landscape. Tracing the beginnings of the games all the way back to the slavery era, the film’s collection of illuminating voices — including musicians, music educators and ethnomusicologists — trace a fascinating cultural history that explains the significance of hand games, particularly in the evolution of popular music from jazz all the way to hip hop. The film also explores hand games’ influence on style and individualism everywhere from the playground to TikTok videos today.

Filmmaker, artist and author, Michèle Stephenson, pulls from her Haitian and Panamanian roots and experience as a social justice lawyer to think radically about storytelling and disrupt the imaginary in non-fiction spaces. She tells emotionally driven, personal narratives of resistance and identity that center the lived experiences of communities of color in the Americas and the Black diaspora.

In 2023, Michèle’s feature documentary Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and premiered on MAX. Previously, her feature documentary American Promise was nominated for three Emmys and won the Jury Prize at Sundance. Along with her writing partners, Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, Michèle won an NAACP Image Award for Excellence in a Literary Work for their book, Promises Kept. Currently, she is in post-production on a feature on the death of Freddie Gray and a program for the CBC on the Black Power movement in Canada.

Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez is a fun, exciting peek into the personal lives of WWE’s hottest couple. Bianca Belair and Montez Ford’s road to WrestleMania is a wild ride, as Montez continues his ascent and Bianca fights to hold on to her title. With the support of their tight knit group of friends, family and fellow superstars, the dynamic duo somehow always manages to pull off the impossible.

"You can if you will." A phrase uttered to a young Jerry Kramer by his line coach at Sandpoint High School in tiny Sandpoint, Idaho, that would go on to push him to a celebrated NFL career with the Green Bay Packers and a sentiment that he would repeat to close his speech at his long awaited enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame almost seven decades later in 2018. In the spirit of Jerry Kramer's unforgettable and bestselling collaborations with the great Dick Schaap, his first book about his life and career in over two decades, Run to Win will serve as Kramer's definitive statement about a remarkable life and career of perseverance, teamwork, and gridiron greatness. Spanning the beginning of the legendary Vince Lombardi era through Kramer's confoundingly long wait to receive his bust in Canton, Kramer tells his amazing story as one of the most memorable and toughest Packers in franchise history. Including insightful commentary about the eminently intriguing Lombardi, as well as fellow Hall of Fame teammates Jim Taylor, Forrest Gregg, Willie Davis, Bart Starr, Emlen Tunnell, and many more, Run to Win is a must read for all true Packers fans from one of the legends who helped lay the foundation for one of the most identifiable and successful franchises in the history of professional sports.

For over three decades, Angelo Cataldi was the on-air voice of Philadelphia sports fans, leading the charge with unabashed zeal and infectious energy. He was the maestro of the mania, the conductor of the symphony of vitriol that blared through car radios every morning in the most misunderstood yet passionate sports city in America. It made him his share of enemies, but he walked away from the microphone with enough stories for several lifetimes-or one jam-packed, lively memoir. LOUD is an exuberant chronicle of Cataldi's life, from his childhood as a self-described "king nerd" to the traditional newspaper career he left behind, and his eventual rise to the top of the Philadelphia sports radio scene on WIP. Through it all, Cataldi remained dedicated to his mission of talking about what the city was talking about, in the same tone. And that tone was loud, passionate, and unapologetically real. Full of encounters with athletes, personalities, and power brokers as well as candid reflections, LOUD is a must-read for the die-hard sports fan and anyone who appreciates a good story.

It’s time to get off the bench and take charge of your life.Girl with a Game Plan is an empowering and action oriented book that will transform your life from being a bystander to becoming the superstar you were meant to be. Heather Gidusko will share with your listeners the ways to succeed and live a life with purpose, meaning, and passion.