About the Book

It is impossible to avoid sport, whether you like it or not. The essay collection bread and circuses shows that sports stories are in fact stories about motivation, fairness, the meaning and value of defeat, commercialization, equality … stories of Luka Dončić, Andre Agassi, Petra Majdič, and Simone Biles … of exceptional, inspiring, trapped, and broken people.

A long-time sports journalist approaches sport from a personal angle—through the eyes of a child who once wanted nothing more than to become a sports star, and of a father to a young athlete who does not want his child to pursue sport professionally. He also reflects on sport as spectacle and business, and as a field of social tensions.

To make the book engaging and witty, yet also complex and open-ended, Slavko Jerič gave 120 percent of himself and left his heart on the page.