Billion-Dollar Ball: A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football

By Joseph Cooper,

Published September 28, 2015 at 1:00 PM EDT

09/28/15 - If you watch big-time college football, you’ll want to catch Monday’s Topical Currents.

We’ll visit with Pulitzer Prize-winner Gilbert Gaul about his new work, BILLION DOLLAR BALL. The culture of the college game is business. Profit margins surpass Fortune-500 companies. There are generous federal tax breaks and outlandish TV deals. Top teams spend 50-times the amount on a player than on a gifted student. Listen for Topical Currents . . . Monday at 1pm.

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Joseph Cooper

WLRN Radio's Joseph Cooper says producing and hosting Topical Currents is the most rewarding experience of his long radio career, which began at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in the 1970s.

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Richard Ives

Richard Ives came to WLRN in September 2000 to begin a new career in radio. Born in Fort Lauderdale, his family moved to Long Island, New York, where he grew up. After graduation from college and an unsatisfying stint in a job that, as he puts it, "paid the bills but for which I had no passion" he found himself contemplating a midlife career change after being laid-off.

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