We know that the Aztecs played ball games, and annual ritual games were vital in the cultural life of the Mesoamerican peoples. There is no doubt that the advent of digital broadcasting has signaled a new phase in the development of the relationship between sport and the media.
Sport, the Media and Popular Culture
Within this narrative, the growing role of the media in shaping sports discourse is also acknowledged. Both this and the next chapter are based on the historical and economic analysis described in the previous part of the book.
All Our Yesterdays
A History of Media Sport
One aspect of the sports press was to communicate and help legislate the organization of sport. Like today, coverage of sports from the turn of the twentieth century was highly selective.
A Sporting Triangle
Television, Sport and Sponsorship
During the 1970s, condom manufacturer Durex became involved in sponsoring motor racing as part of its company strategy. It is this particular aspect of the sport-media relationship that we turn our attention to in the following chapters.
Power Game
Why Sport Matters to Television
The need to televise the sport structures both the form of Twenty20 cricket and the experience of the spectator at the ground. But even by the late 1950s the BBC was being consulted by cricket administrators. In the 1950s and 1960s, cricket authorities were wary of the effect television would have on the sport.
Additionally, the structure of the event draws spectators into the action, with fans encouraged to participate in the televised presentation of the sport. The power play 75 dayglo orange adds emphasis to the fact that the sport is designed to attract the attention of the spectator and viewer. Therefore, audience expectations regarding televised sports have changed with the development of new technologies.
Another comparison is of interest at this point, that of the BBC's recruitment of young commentators in the late 1940s and 1950s. This involves a continuing evolution of the transformation of sport into televised sport, or adapted sport.
Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Media Sport and Stardom
Second, we examine the origins of sports celebrity and the rise of the sports agent, perhaps one of the most influential additions to the business of sports. Furthermore, in the game of golf, the professional sport has a direct link to corporate America as the preferred pastime of the American middle class. We could become a dumping ground for world football as it is one of the game's honeypots.
It is well known that elite sports stars are a product of the era in which they live. One of the main tools in capitalizing on the individual sports star is what is known as 'image rights'. However, even in some of the world's biggest sports leagues, artificial checks and balances are put in place to ensure fee competition and wealth distribution.
In 1994, allegations of match-fixing against goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar by the newspaper Sun drew attention to the place of sport in society and the place of the media in reporting and coverage of the sport. Cantona's complex characterization in the media illustrates some of the ongoing problems today's sports stars face when they.
The Race Game
Media Sport, Race and Ethnicity
In their review of media coverage of African American athletes in the US, Davis and Harris (1998) note how specific stereotypes of "natural" black athletes have been used to explain the apparent overrepresentation of blacks in sports. The media coverage of his first professional bout was given in the context of the London bombings and the wider crisis in the ideology of multiculturalism, which exists in the shadow cast by such horrific events. The events of 2005 created a rift between perceptions of Britishness (and more specifically Englishness) and the inclusion of various ethnic minorities in wider UK civil society.
It all seemed like an instant antidote to derailing any confidence in the concept of multiculturalism and the multiculturalist ideal. In the United Kingdom, this manifested itself in deep doubt about the loyalty of British Asians, especially Muslims, to the British state and their role as citizens. The Racing Game 117 consensus and is generally presented as such in the discourses of mainstream sports journalism and broadcasting.
The level of press and broadcast coverage given to the 'Old Firm' is a constant source of annoyance to football supporters outside the West of Scotland. In the past, the media's treatment of Black and Asian athletes has been absent or stereotyped in various contexts.
Playing the Game
Media Sport and Gender
In the United States, there is a growing awareness among television sports executives of the potential advertising revenue to be gained by targeting a female sports audience. In the US, Val Ackerman is president of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBC) and has been at the forefront of directing the television profile of that sport in the US. It is important to recognize the different roots of the game in the US and the UK, with the game being deeply embedded in the American college system.
Subsequently, it would not be unusual for Pendleton to be referred to in the press as the 'golden girl' of the British Olympic team GB. The display of violence in sports is further legitimized by the voyeuristic gaze of the television camera. Nowhere is the metaphor of the male body as a weapon or fighting machine more apparent than in the sport of boxing.
In the event, Benn took a series of heavy punches that knocked him out of the ring in the opening round. The fight went on to be celebrated in the sports press as one of the most exciting fights of modern times.
Games Across Frontiers
Mediated Sport and National Identity
In the past, countries such as the former Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic have directly linked the health of the state to its ability to perform successfully in the international sports arena (Houlihan, 1997). It can be misleading to place the media at the center of the process of identity formation. President Nelson Mandela explicitly associated himself with the Springboks team, projecting it as a symbol of the "new."
Games Across Borders 153 themselves in the eyes of the media as Scottish rather than English (Giulianotti, 2005a). Garland (2004) notes how the relative success of the England football team at the World Cup. In their detailed review of British (actually English) rugby league, Arundel and Roche (1998) convincingly argue that the interplay between global media and sport is changing the game's localized traditions.
In the process, they have highlighted one of the paradoxes of information in the market-driven digital age. We remain convinced that as the globalization of media industries (in all their complexities and contradictions) continues apace, sport will continue to be an important cultural, political and commercial marker of borders, identities and markets.
The Sports Pages
Journalism and Sport
Despite the detrimental parameters set by the sports press, there never seems to be a shortage of sports news itself. When taking over a newspaper, media magnate Rupert Murdoch will focus on the organization of the sports section and the level of sports coverage. The sports columnist's job is to develop a distinctive voice that takes on some form of advocacy.
A key feature of sports journalism in the UK is that it is part of a process that sees the expansion and growth of the journalistic news arena. This is further complicated by the increasing use of the Internet as a news source for sports journalists. A feature of the digital age in the UK has been the growth and reliance on freelance sports journalists.
In the case of financial financing of print sports journalism, the situation in the sector is often uneven. However, in the sports journalism arena, there is a long tradition of dissent from "mainstream" sports journalism through media platforms such as the print fanzine movement of the 1980s/1990s.
Consuming Sport
Fans, Fandom and the Audience
While these overtly conservative images of worship do not seem to relate in any way to the four million or so regular viewers who watch a program like BBC Television's Match of the Day on Saturday night, some dichotomy is invoked by the phrase 'armchair supporter'. . In a critique of this dominant position in the classical male spectator, Rose and Friedman (1994) have argued that, while a degree of fetishization of the male body constitutes the 'hermeneutic process of reading and evaluating athletic performances', 'analytic discourse'. As suggested in Chapters 2 and 3, television was integral to the standardization and commodification of sport, as new technologies were continually introduced to 'make sense' of the action for viewers.
The sports commentator puts the viewer in a relationship with the melodrama of the event, which unfolds as a series and constantly breaks into new stories about players, coaches, clubs and nations. Identification with the re-presentation of action is central to the popular pleasures produced by televised sport. Familiarity with the form and style of commentary and emotional identification with specific players and teams together dissolve the boundary.
After reviewing the discursive address of televised sports and the construction of the male viewer, the analysis now turns to the social and cultural consumption of the genre by men – this was carried out in the context of the Men Viewing Violence project (Schlesinger). et al., 1998), in which both authors collaborated. In the men's study, we were acutely aware of the need to broaden the range of programs to include not only male-on-female violence, but also male-on-male violence, including violence in sports.
