Hey all, hope everyone had a great weekend. Like Manning said I will be talking about sports and television.
As I was reading the chapters, I noticed that sports on television are one of the main out sources for sports, entertainment and advertising. Not only does TV celebrate main sports events but TV has shows that constantly talk about sports an example including SportsCenter on ESPN. Truly believe that sports would not be what they are today without television. The chapters discuss they evolvement of sports on television. It always has a steady audience and racks in ratings.
Sports channels have become standard channels in the American household today. At any given time a viewer can find basically any sport on TV. ESPN is a major channel broadcasting every sports from curling to poker. Cable and Satellite TV have now brought many channels to American homes. There is now channels like the YES Network, the Football channel and the Tennis Channel. So the question I bring to the class is, where would sports be today without television? And what do you think our culture would be like if sports was not an everyday occurrence on TV? There is never a time when there is not a season for a popular sport. At any given time there is a major league sport broadcast over television.
Not only are we interested in American sports but there has become a global marketing strategy to bring international teams to our country and American teams to foreign countries. A prime example is David Beckham coming to the LA Galaxy soccer team. As we have talked about in class, soccer is not a popular sport in America. Bringing a star like David Beckham to the US has sparked an excitement in our society. Below are articles I have found about the Beckham’s coming to America and sports ratings and how they have grown.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=399465&cc=5901
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-06-15-weekend_x.htm
http://wordpress.com/tag/cable-tv-ratings/
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So far as Justine’s blog goes, television surely has propelled the interest in sports, both nationwide and internationally. In fact, it’s propelled sports much in the same way that it’s propelled even just international news. The entire idea of being on-location essentially, without the inconvenience of having to travel, is what draws people in. If the game starts at 7pm Pacific Standard Time, you could just be finishing the game that started on Eastern Standard time and have an entire night of entertainment at your fingertips. Television has allowed fans all over to identify with not only their home team, but also favorite players on various teams out of the area.
Plus, as Justine stated, there is never a time when you cannot find a sport to watch. Why is everyone so excited in March? The NCAA basketball play-offs, which has become one of the highest rated tournaments in sports television. This is an excellent tactic for exposing young athletes to the world and gaining a fan base very early in their careers. This also pertains to the last point she mentioned about David Beckham coming to the states. While he was already internationally renowned, bringing him to our country exposes him to our culture and our sports network. This means more endorsements, more ticket sales, the whole nine yards. Essentially, doing this is a score for the advertising industry, as well as the television industry, and of course the staple which holds it all together, the professional sports industry.
Television has allowed sports of all kinds to grow to new proportions. It has made the leagues and owners a ton of money. This is important because with television I don't think the salaries of players would be nearly as high today. The TV contract money that the teams get, along with individual team networks such as YES, give teams a ton of money to spend.
TV has also allowed sports to bring in different types of fan bases. For example the NFL, NBA, and MLB all have expanded their fan bases overseas mainly because of people there being able to watch those sports on TV. Games being shown on TV allows people to follow whatever athlete they want, no matter where they are. Yao Ming, for one, has a huge following in China, and before TV those people would not have been able to see him play anymore once he came to the NBA. Now the NBA is huge in China majorly because of a star from there coming over and the Chinese people still being able to see him play.
This is the same sort of thing David Beckham is trying to do here. Soccer is already huge in Europe, but now him coming here is trying to expand the fan base in the U.S. All of his early games when he joined the MLS were on ESPN. Without TV, Beckham could still bring in initial attendance spikes, but people seeing him on TV and being impressed is what will make people here continue to go see him play.
Basically, if there was no sports on television then many of us would be missing out on teams and sports we love. My favorite college football team (Florida State) and NBA team (Lebron's Cleveland Cavaliers) are both not in this area, so if there was no TV I would never have had a chance to see them to play. It just allows people to be fans of whatever team and players they want. At the same time, television has allowed players and leagues to market themselves much better. Michael Jordan was able to make every game he was on TV in his prime a must-watch, thus expanding his mystique and marketability. Sports on TV gives the players a place to showcase their skills to the world, and the fans a chance to connect with the events going on out of their area and timezone.
I just wanted to comment real quick about Ron's comment about TV bringing sports to a more international audience. When I was abroad last semester we used to go to this one bar all the time because they played American sports. Some nights it'd be empty except for the few of us watching the Yankee game. Other nights though (like during the NCAA finals) it'd be packed with people who just loved American sports.
But unfortunately it doesn't go both ways. I'd love to be able to watch some European rugby here in the U.S. or even just hear about the Cricket World Cup (which is a HUGE deal over there), but that option doesn't exist to me. So while its important to recognize how wonderful tv is, its also important to note how much television seperates us from the rest of the world.
Sports would be nothing it is today without television; Period. Newspapers allow you to follow sports the following and radio does an adequate job of painting the image of being at the ballpark but there is no comparison to actually watching a game on television. There are only so many seats available for each game in each stadium. As a result, the rest of us are relegated to watch the games we want to see on television. It would be very hard to imagine possessing the same interest I have in sports without being able to watch it. When talking with my friends about sports I can't tell you how many times a question begins with, "Did you see..." The only way this question is even made possible is through television.
It is intriguing to note that athletes of past generations have a certain aura attached to them because there is not much footage about them and you can only wonder what it would have been to like to watch them play. For example, Babe Ruth is an icon to baseball without the majority of today's sports fan ever seeing him play a game. He has developed this mystique through writings in newspapers and stories passed down. However, when I get older and I begin to tell my children about Derek Jeter and the great Alex Rodriguez, they will have the opportunity to watch them on television and fully understand/appreciate the greatness these players possessed.
It is also without question the growth of sports has been aided by channels such as ESPN. For those of us who a non-stop fixation with sports, we can find it through ESPN. We are not kept waiting until sports segments in the news to find out what has happened during the day in the world of sports. Ron brings up a great point that many teams also benefit from the amount of tv exposure they receive. Unfortunately for teams on the other end, such as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, their lack of tv exposure is hurting them. However, it should be overlooked what television coverage has done for a team such as the Yankees. By creating their own television network and forcing fans to tune into their own station in order to watch the Yankees play, they have created an immense amount of revenue that has allowed them to consistently sign the most talented player in free agency each off season.
For me, television is a reason that I am a fan of my favorite college teams. Watching Notre Dame play college football every Saturday has become a ritual. They have their own television deal with NBC which allows every game to be televised and allows more opportunity for Notre Dame to gain more fans. The same goes with North Carolina basketball and then amount of games they have televised on ESPN, ESPN2, SNY, etc. If these teams were not constantly on television I do not believe that I would be as big a fan, it at all or these teams because I would not have the opportunity to watch them play.
Finally, in reference to David Beckham, television may be the only solution for soccer to gain popularity in America. The more it can be put on tv, the more people can develop an acquired taste for it. However, we should not be naive and tricked into thinking that David Beckham alone will solve soccer's popularity issue. They need many more of the top international players to come over to America and join him in order to enhance the level of the play and make the game more watchable.
Manning... Great point about the sports cafe london. Nothing better than cheap "soda" and baseball in a foreign country.
Rick and Manning, DITTO to London's Sports Cafe.. although some of us were there to watch the Red Sox not Yankees ;-)... I remember being there one night and on one TV was a Red Sox game and on the TV next to it was a cricket game. The Brits were so enthusiastic about listening to me talk about baseball, yet I couldn't find the same enthusiasm for cricket, despite their similarities. Nonetheless, just the idea of being able to watch American sports games in a foreign country speaks for itself.
I think sports and television go hand-in-hand. The reason atheletes can get paid so handsomely is because of all the money the teams make from television rights to their games. With the constant exposure teams and players get on TV, the bigger the celebrity status they gain, the bigger the fan base becomes. Like the Yankees, the Red Sox have NESN (New England Sports Network) which provides both the Red Sox and Bruins (who own 20% of NESN vs the Sox' 80%) with revenue that other major league teams cannot generate. This contributes to both the Yankees' and Red Sox' prevalence in MLB. Sports were not big on television in the early 60's. There were some games broadcast, but there were no pre-game/post-game wrapups, no sports talk shows. In fact, the 1st superbowl had many empty seats! Now games are broadcast everywhere and fans can watch their favorite team from almost anywhere. It is obvious that without television, the sports industry would not be one of the most ubiquitous industries in the world.
Justine brought up several good points. Television is a major part of life today. Not only are sports broadcasted on regular channels there are specific stations geared towards sports. Just the fact that there are certain cable channels for sports speaks volumes on how far sports have come with the influence of television. I know that my uncle with Comcast has the hockey package, which gives him several channels just for hockey games. Without television games would not reach so many people across the country. East coast games and west coast games would be just that. Sports on television is also extremely useful for fans who may have moved away from where their team plays. A Yankee fan living in California will be able to watch games because of such channels as YES or ESPN. Television has truly made sports grow and without it sports would not be the major part of life that it is today. Sports can come into the homes of millions and not just be seen by those in the stands. Television allows for sports to be inclusive to the masses and not exclusive to just those with tickets to the game. Television has propelled sports into the enormity that it is today.
The other topic Justine touched on that I found interesting was David Beckham. Being abroad in London and living in Harrison, NJ, which is the new site for the Red Bull’s stadium, the hype around soccer has grown immensely. Tickets to the Red Bull v. LA Galaxy sold like crazy and the television coverage also was bigger than the Red Bulls normally received. Also. Chelsea came to play the LA Galaxy, which received good coverage for soccer in the US. Not only was there coverage in the US but while I was in London sports broadcasts talked about Beckham’s move to the Galaxy and the game against Chelsea. Without the coverage from television the game would not have been so widely viewed. Sports thrive from television coverage and television in turn sports vastly helps television networks.
There is no doubt that sports and television have a great relationship, and really go hand in hand. They have both helped propel the other to new heights. Sports would not be what they are today without TV, and vice versa. In my opinion, there are two really great things that sports on TV do. One, they allow people to gather and make a sporting event a social event. The Super Bowl is the most obvious example, but even on a smaller scale this is true. Every Sunday my friends and I order some food and watch football all day. Without football being on TV, this social gathering would not happen. The other wonderful thing that television gives us is the ability to see great players and teams that we wouldn't normally be able to see. Im not talking about local teams, because we know those players. But it is nice when ESPN broadcasts a great baseball game on Sunday night and we on the East Coast get to watch awesome players on the West coast play. Or even when teams from other countries play, we get to see some great talent in action. Television makes the world much smaller and allows us to take in so many more things than we would be able to without it.
Even though radio gets the job done and newspapers get the point across, TV goes above and beyond just getting the point across. There is nothing like being able to watch a great play in action and see the emotions of the players involved. Without sports, television would not be as interesting. There would be a lot of news and bad reality shows, but no real entertainment. No real escape. I wont really get into the revenue aspect since so many others have mentioned it, but that too is a huge reason why sports and television are so great for each other. But the bottom line is, sports and television are like peanut butter and jelly..they're good separate, but great together.
After reading the chapter and this week’s blog, I was reminded of the obvious fact that money is the reason for sports becoming so dominant in the media, the best of sports coverage being on television rather than radio. Somewhere along the line, someone discovered the obvious: Sports are an enormous part of out culture and this country’s public interest, therefore it is worthy of media coverage. It’s clear that idea was obviously a good one when we look at the amount of different channels and programs on TV, and more stations on radio, are covering sporting events, sports news, and other sports-related entertainment. It’s there for the same reason the sports section is in the newspapers; people want to see it. And giving the public what they want results in profit. To answer Justine’s questions, without sports coverage on television, I think there would be narrower fan base for most sports because it would be more difficult to rope in fans who didn’t otherwise get introduced to a given sport. On the other hand, there would be more fans actually attending sporting events if they couldn’t sit home and watch them in their living rooms. I think that the lack of sports coverage on TV would drastically hurt the profit made in the sporting industry because you couldn’t possibly reach out and get as many people to attend your sporting events on a regular basis as you could get them to watch sports on TV. Also, sports have become a means of socialization in our culture. A prime example of this is the Superbowl.
As for radio, I personally don’t listen to sports radio unless I am on the road and don’t have access to a TV. When I do, I tend to tune out most of the commentary and just listen for the play-by-play and the score. I couldn’t tell you the name of any sports radio show or broadcaster except that WBCN broadcasts the Pats games. I would have to agree that sports radio shows are dominated by male voices giving male opinions of male-dominated sports, but I would rather listen to that than “The Fantoo Girls.” I don’t see female radio sports broadcasters going anywhere. Sports will most likely remain male dominated the same way sports television is. Aside from your occasional Hazel Mae, women are not welcomed by most sports fans the way that men are. As for the lack of research and in radio broadcasting, I think that can also be accredited to money. The best sports broadcasters work on television because there is more of a future in that profession, and more money involved.
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