Arenaland - Paperback

by Paul Wieland (Author)

An epic saga of the life and times in the world's most famous sports venue, Arenaland explores its subject with humor, and something to engage or enrage every fan. Ignatius "Iggy" Muldoon inherited merely $100-million on college graduation so he built his dream arena on a bedrock of loans. All kinds of eccentrics, whackos and felons come aboard, including Pete Nitnay, the man who lives in the rafters; Dave Majestic, throne maker to the stars, condiments supervisor Noblesse Oblige, and Achilles Heal, who's the crafty shepherd lurking outside the arena gates. Arenas worldwide have become cathedrals of sport, and at times cathedrals of another sort. There are 57-plus entertainment varieties in Gotham, where Muldoon invested his money and his life in what's billed as the "Great Arena." From major-league hockey and basketball to the new team drinking competition and the indoor fishing league, the Great Arena needs to pull in big bucks to stay financially afloat under Iggy. It isn't easy. When danger of losing control happens, he comes up with a radical way to keep his dream. Central to it all is the public relations dreamer, Stan Flack, with ideas that are butter knife cutting-edge in the competitive world of sports. Satire spars with parody; absurdity's in a smack-down with social commentary in this charcoal-gray look at the sports business from an author who spent 36 years in arena sports, and that long in a vain attempt to get a real job.