On September 10 1974, the American football player, Michael Oriard, was called from his room at the Kansas City chiefs' training camp and told he was being cut from the team. His three-year career in the National Football League was over.

In his latest book, Brand NFL, Oriard consults the archive of the Kansas City Star newspaper to see how he responded. The Star reported that day that the player was "deeply hurt", but would return to graduate school and had "no worry about his future". Indeed: Oriard is now a professor of English at Oregon State University. Brand NFL explains how his old sport transformed within four decades from "rinky-dink sideshow", baseball's thuggish kid brother, into arguably America's favourite entertainment. But as football grew, its character had to change.