released on September 15, 1983, by Chrysalis Records. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 on June 30, 1984, and ultimately charted for 160 weeks. Sports was ranked No. 2 on the Billboard year-end album chart for 1984 and spawned four top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with "Heart and Soul" and "The Heart of Rock & Roll" earning Grammy Award nominations. Sports was self-produced by the band after their manager, Bob Brown, felt the band's own demos were better than the producers they had been considering. The ethos behind the production of the album was to meld old techniques and instrumentation with modern technology, inspired by hearing the use of an electronic drum machine on Steely Dan's 1980 song "Hey Nineteen".

The title of the album was a play on the band's name. The cover art features a photo of the band at the 2 AM Club, a bar located in Mill Valley, California, where the band had performed during its early days. A bar was chosen for the shoot because the band reasoned that most people watched televised sporting events in bars. Brown became concerned about Sports being promoted properly when the band's label, Chrysalis Records, fired much of its production staff. As a result, the band made a decision to withhold the finished record from the label until the issues were resolved.

TRACKLIST

The Heart Of Rock & Roll
Heart And Soul
Bad Is Bad
I Want A New Drug

Walking On A Thin Line
Finally Found A Home
If This Is It
You Crack Me Up
Honky Tonk Blues