Sports and the Media

In the early nineteenth century, the British news-sheet Bell's Life in London started to include coverage of sports among its reports. They noticed that this led to significant increases in their sales and circulation figures, and the liaison of sports and the media commenced. The paper's successful monopoly was broken in 1865 by the launch of The Sporting Life. Other papers followed suit and dedicated pages of sports coverage became widespread.

The involvement of the media (primarily, it must be noted, for financial gain and promotion of their publications) is implemented in the creation of sports celebrities and personalities. Famous sports icons were instrumental in boosting sales from advertising and raising public attendance at sporting events. In a bitter twist, their fame today relies as much on the caprices of the mass media as it does on their own athletic performances.

Exploitation of the mass spectatorship potential of sports came to the fore in the 1920s when live commentaries of sports events bound communities of fans together around the crackling airwaves of the radio. Filmed news of sports were already being shown in cinema newsrools at that time, but these could hardly compete with the excitement of live radio broadcasting.

Then, in 1937, 25 minutes of a men's single match from Wimbledon was televised to a small London audience in an experimental service from the BBC. Technological limitations meant that cameras were fixed and players were miniscule. Nevertheless, the BBC regarded the televising of sports as one of its statutory obligations, whilst promotors and sponsors were quick to realise the attractive advertising potentials of the medium.

In 1946, 5000 television sets were sold in the USA; within ten years, the number had risen so dramatically that 75% of the country's households now owned a set. The televising of major sports events had played a key role during this period in ensuring the success of the television industry.

The relationship between sports and the media continues to be either mutually beneficial or parasitic, depending on your point of view. Public interest and spectator involvement in sports is certainly fuelled by extensive media coverage. On the darker side, augmentation of profits and consumer demands risk reducing sports to little more than icons, hype and saturation. This is clearly a highly profitable relationship, but also one that demands caution and balance.