Over the past several years, there has been rapid technological change transforming the way in which people live their lives (How television changed football, 2010) and this change has seen us, as humans, become more reliant and accustomed to using such technology. It is a fact that many of us now find ourselves using the latest Samsung windscreen television to watch our sports instead of travelling hundreds of miles and paying hundreds of pounds to watch it live, and many of us are simply unable to gain access to tickets. “The screening of television programmes and the participation in sporting events – have become inextricably intertwined” (Paterson, 1998, p. 85) and “sport has become a branch of the advertising and public relations industries” (Whannel, 1992, p. 2) – so much so, that major, desirable sporting events have become harder to attend and as a result, there is a common view that, in today’s society, TV controls sport. In this essay I will be critically evaluating if TV controls sport and how, while referencing to the main factors that shape the commercial relationship between the media and sports industries.
For the most part, there is little denying that television has at least changed the way we view sports. Kelner mentions in his book ‘Sit Down and Cheer’ that “most of our memories of the greatest moments in sport come filtered through the cathode ray tube, and its flatter, more technologically elaborate successors” (Kelner, 2012, p. 16), and this couldn’t be closer to the truth. Collectively, we seem more inclined to sit down and watch the greatest moments in sport in our living rooms and it’s rare we actually watch sport live (Domeneghetti, R. 2014, p. XII). In fact, according to statistics by Repucom, in the 2014/15 Premier League season, it was televised across 225 broadcast territories, reaching 730 million homes and 3.0 billion of us. Television allows sport to reach millions more people than just showing it live at a venue or stadium – the space in the venues is restricted, but the showing of it on television isn’t, leaving television with a distinct advantage, which is why it is so popular.
The popularity of watching sports through a television could be down to many reasons, for one – watching sport in front of a television means you’re less likely to miss anything that happens. This is down to the sheer number of cameras that are in place in sports stadiums that allow for multiple replays, goal-line technology and close-ups of the biggest moments. At the 2014 Brazil World Cup, 34 cameras were used to capture the action, including two reverse-angle cameras that were used for replays. There have been many moments in sport that, if you were to blink or look away for one second while watching live, you’d have missed – such as a goal in a football match. People may even find themselves tuning in to watch the highlight of that match on the television afterwards, to view what they had initially missed.
Not to mention that through the use of these cameras, they broadcast thousands of advertisements during games – making thousands of pounds by doing so, which helps to pay towards the cost of the rights to air the games. Many companies, such as sportswear brands and transport companies advertise on billboards during sporting events, like at all Premier League matches. Cristiano Ronaldo recently signed a new sponsorship deal with Nike likely worth around the same US$1 billion lifetime contract that NBA star LeBron James signed. Similarly, the sponsors of sports teams and people – such as Chevrolet and Adidas for Manchester United, the former of which are paying £750 million over ten years to the club, pay the huge amounts of money because sponsoring people and teams that have a huge worldwide status is extremely desirable. Top-level football clubs are businesses (Morrow, S. 2004, p. 56) as are many sports people, and its indisputable that they are worth a lot of money. This is, undoubtedly, largely thanks to the fact that they are broadcast to the masses on television.
When you compare images of the World Cup Final in 1966 to any recent Champions League match on TV – the differences are drastic. Football, and in particular, the Champions League, has become so commercialised over the past few years. Back in the time of the World Cup final, there were no advertisements during the game; no sponsors on the player’s shirts, no commercials at half time and there were no advertising boards in the stadiums. Nowadays there are plenty of advertisements during the game – and it is an advertisement paradise, so to speak. Adidas spent around $150 million to be the ‘Official Sportswear Partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games and faced competition from Nike who, rather unfairly, gained their own deal that could see them sponsor most of the Brazilian national teams for the games. The sheer competition that both went through in order to get the sponsorship highlights the importance of sports for top brands – they know that what they spend on sponsorship, they will get back from advertising and sales from the sponsorship.
Of course, however, the main talking point when it comes to television and sport is the viewing rights. Companies such as Sky, BT Sport and NBC pay out millions every year for the right to broadcast sports – just last year, it was announced that Sky and BT are paying out £5.14 billion over three seasons for the right to broadcast the Premier League matches. It’s little wonder how the rights are worth so much – after all, Premier League television broadcast revenues grew from £633,000 per game in 1992 to £6.53 billion in 2014. As well as this, in 2013, NBC paid out $250 million for the right to show these games for three years (Chadwick, S. 2014). Thousands of people subscribe to Sky and BT Sport in order to see sporting events, paying at least £27.50 a month for a basic sport package to do so. To add BT Sport to this, people have to pay £6 a month extra – again, a basic package with no HD channel, that luxury is worth an extra £5 on top of that per month – an expensive business. UFC pay per view events can cost anywhere from £20 to £50 for just one event, and these events can be over quickly – just last year, Connor McGregor beat Jose Aldo in 13 seconds in what was a hugely anticipated fight. Thousands of people paid and tuned in for the fight just for it to be over that swiftly. It’s increasingly shocking when you put into perspective just how many people paid to watch this short fight, thought to be over 1,900,000 people.
Also, with this, comes the fact that many sports events and games are played and carried out at times that bring in most spectators – as quoted from the Premier League website, their games are shown “from 12.45pm to 12.45pm on a Saturday to 8pm on a Monday enabling fans in all continents to watch matches at convenient times.” Due to the broadcasting of sports on television accumulating so much revenue, it is of little wonder that they will attempt to reach as many people as they can – especially seeing as the Premier League is watched in over 210 countries. Until the mid-1980s, live domestic football on TV was limited to the English and Scottish FA Cup and European finals, now, near every domestic football game is broadcast to the masses – even the less important ones. This shows that TV has a major hold on sport – one that will be difficult to untwine, – “television has become central to the prominence of sport… (It) has in turn, become a significant source of revenue for a variety of sports” (Whannel, 1992, p. 3).
Without television, in fact, some sports may not even be noticed by many of us. Take darts for example – 1.7m people tuned in to watch Gary Anderson beat Phil Taylor in the 2015 William Hill World Darts Championship, but without it being broadcasted to the masses, only a small fraction of that viewership would have possibly seen that feat. With that in mind, other sports, such as baseball, have also benefitted massively from television broadcasting, – “to increase the interest of television fans, (baseball) set up new scheduling and playoff systems. Baseball even transformed the venerable World Series into a night time affair” (G. Rader, 1984, p. 140). The less popular sports are able to see much more viewership than they would if television didn’t broadcast their events, so much so, they tailor their sports to ‘suit TV’. Many sports consequently rely on being broadcast.
In conclusion, “television, in association with sponsorship, has been responsible for changing the face of sport…” (Whannel, 1992, p. 2) and many people rely on broadcasted sports so they may have the opportunity to watch them. Television has a major ‘hold’ over sport and it is responsible for generating a massive amount of revenue and for drawing huge amounts of spectators to events while offering great coverage with many cameras following the events. The view that TV controls sport is controversial, yet largely undeniable. From making thousands of pounds from subscriptions to sports packages on Sky and BT, to making even more money from advertising companies – it’s a force to be reckoned with. When it comes to football, “BT and Sky are now paying over £6 million a match and showing almost three times as many games” (Goldblatt, 2014, p. 18) – and that is how, in my opinion, TV controls sport.