Jeff Benedict has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 212 ratings. The most-rated is Tiger Woods.
Tiger Woods
Summary
The number one New York Times best seller based on years of reporting and interviews with more than 250 people from every corner of Tiger Woods’s life - this “comprehensive, propulsive...and unsparing” (The New Yorker) biography is “an ambitious 360-degree portrait of golf’s most scrutinized figure...brimming with revealing details” (Golf Digest). In 2009, Tiger Woods was the most famous athlete on the planet, a transcendent star of almost unfathomable fame and fortune living what appeared to be the perfect life. But it turned out he had been living a double life for years - one that exploded in the aftermath of a Thanksgiving-night crash that exposed his serial infidelity and sent his personal and professional lives over a cliff. In this “searing biography of golf’s most blazing talent” (GOLF magazine), Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian dig deep behind the headlines to produce a richly reported answer to the question that has mystified millions of sports fans for nearly a decade: who is Tiger Woods, really? Drawing on more than 400 interviews with people from every corner of Woods’s life - many of whom have never spoken about him on the record before - Benedict and Keteyian construct a captivating psychological profile of a mixed-race child programmed by an attention-grabbing father and the original Tiger Mom to be the “chosen one”, to change not just the game of golf, but the world as well. But at what cost? Benedict and Keteyian provide the starling answers in this definitive biography that is destined to linger in the minds of listeners for years to come. “Irresistible.... Immensely readable.... Benedict and Keteyian bring us along for the ride in a whirlwind of a biography that reads honest and true.” (The Wall Street Journal) Ultimately, Tiger Woods is “a big American story...exhilarating, depressing, tawdry, and moving in almost equal measure” (The New York Times).
©2018 Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Dynasty
Summary
New York Times Best Seller From the number-one New York Times best-selling coauthor of Tiger Woods comes the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots - the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century. It’s easy to forget that the New England Patriots were once the laughingstock of the NFL, a nearly bankrupt team that had never won a championship and was on the brink of moving to St. Louis. Everything changed in 1994, when Robert Kraft acquired the franchise and soon brought on board Head Coach Bill Belichick and Quarterback Tom Brady. Since then, the Patriots have become a juggernaut, making 10 trips to the Super Bowl, winning six of them, and emerging as one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world. Today, the team’s 20-year reign atop the NFL stands as the longest in league history. How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty, acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than 200 insiders - including team executives, coaches, players, players’ wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more - as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications. Through his exhaustive research, Benedict uncovers surprising new details about the inner workings of a team notorious for its secrecy. He puts listeners in the room as Robert Kraft outmaneuvers a legion of lawyers and investors to buy the team. We listen in on the phone call when the greatest trade ever made - Bill Belichick for a first-round draft choice - is negotiated. And we look over the shoulder of 40-year-old Tom Brady as a surgeon operates on his throwing hand on the eve of the AFC Championship Game in 2018. But the portrait that emerges in The Dynasty is more rewarding than new details alone. By tracing the team’s epic run through the perspectives of Kraft, Belichick, and Brady - each of whom was interviewed for the book - the author provides a wealth of new insight into the complex human beings most responsible for the Patriots’ success. We watch the NFL’s savviest owner treat Brady like a son, empower Belichick to cut and trade beloved players, and spend sleepless nights figuring out diplomatic ways to keep Brady and Belichick together for two decades. We come to understand how a genius head coach keeps his players at an emotional distance and blocks out anything that gets in the way of winning. And we experience the relentless drive, ferocious competitive nature, and emotional sensitivity that allows Brady to continue playing football into his 40s. The result is an intimate portrait that captures the human drama of the dynasty’s three key characters while also revealing the secrets behind their success. This is perhaps the most compelling and illuminating book that will ever be written about the greatest professional sports team of our time.
©2020 Rockspring Media, LLC. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
The System
Summary
AN EXPLOSIVE AND REVELATORY PORTRAIT REPORTED FROM DEEP BEHIND THE SCENES OF BIG-TIME NCAA COLLEGE FOOTBALL: THE PASSION, THE THRILLING ACTION—AND THE SHOCKING REALITIES THAT LIE BENEATH THIS COLOSSAL, MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS College football has never been more popular - or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million. But behind this glittering success are darker truths: “athlete-students” working essentially full-time jobs with no share in the oceans of money; players who often don’t graduate and end their careers with broken bodies; “janitors” who clean up player misconduct; football “hostesses” willing to do whatever it takes to land a top recruit; seven-figure black box recruiting slush funds. And this: Despite the millions of dollars pouring into the game, 90 percent of major athletic departments still lose money. Yet schools remain caught up in an ever-escalating “arms race” - at the expense of academic scholarships, facilities and faculty. Celebrated investigative journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian were granted unprecedented access during the 2012 season to programs at the highest levels across the country at a time of convulsive change in college football. Through dogged reporting, they explored every nook and cranny of this high-powered machine, and reveal how it operates from the inside out. The result: the system through the eyes of athletic directors and coaches, high-flying boosters and high-profile TV stars, five-star recruits and tireless NCAA investigators and the kids on whom the whole vast enterprise depends. Both a celebration of the power and pageantry of NCAA football and a groundbreaking, thought-provoking critique of its excesses, The System is the definitive book on the college game.
©2013 Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian (P)2013 Random House
The Mormon Way of Doing Business
Summary
The founder of JetBlue. The CEO of Dell Computers. The CEO of Deloitte & Touche. The dean of the Harvard Business School. They all have one thing in common: they are devout Mormons who spend their Sundays exclusively with their families, never work long hours, and always put their spouses and children first. How do they do it? Critically acclaimed author and investigative journalist Jeff Benedict (a Mormon himself) examines these highly successful business execs and discovers how their beliefs have influenced them and enabled them to achieve incredible success. With original interviews and unparalleled access, Benedict shares what truly drives these individuals and their invaluable life lessons - from which anyone can benefit.
©2008 Jeff Benedict Enterprises LLC (P)2008 Hachette Audio