Connecting with your favourite sport becomes naturally comfortable, when you gain insight, knowledge and information, with regular updates of your favourite sport. Today’s sports journalism and broadcasting has evolved gradually over a period of time, and it is slowly becoming a part of mainstream culture. Earlier in our childhood, sports was considered as something inferior, as a leisure activity, instead of a field of study.
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We were asked to focus on academics rather than spending time watching sports matches or playing sports. Now we see young kids participating in sports and the viewership of each sport has been increasing day by day.
As per the recent statistics, the interest in sport has grown in the last few years, with the advancements in technology and awareness from the media. Young female audiences have shown more interest as compared to male audiences. With broadcasting more advanced and diverse, the access to various sports on streaming platforms has made it easy for the youth to take interest in sports.
Sports broadcasting and its impact on viewers
The primary medium of sports broadcasting earlier was radio, while radio offered detailed, descriptive and live coverage of any sports event. It could be heard for only specific time of the day, at the time of the match, fostering shared experiences.
Radio sports broadcasting began to take a push when television sports broadcasting came in picture, most of the sports fans resorted to live telecast of sports broadcast, while television offered better picture quality, sound quality and an entire view of the match including shots of sportsperson, it was a better option for sports fans to switch to sports channels.Despite that, radio still continue to enjoy a loyal audience who have time for real time commentary, updates and stats of the game.
Televised sports events began in the 1950s , changing the landscape of sports broadcasting. Sports events like the Olympics and FIFA World Cup witnessed a surge in television viewership and popularity of the event, which also created big opportunities for advertisers to market their products. Cable networks and satellite operators earned a huge chunk of revenue, as people preferred to watch live telecasts of sports events. This marked the beginning of entertainment and sports.
Then came the digital media, where fan engagement in sports saw a rise, people came together on social media platforms to discuss their favourite sport and access to sports on streaming platforms was made easy, with viable cost plans. Like in India, Sony has the right to broadcast European football and other soccer leagues, Disney Hotstar has the right to broadcast ODI and T20 Cricket, are some of the broadcasting contracts by these big corporations.
Social media has allowed international audiences to connect to sports, to create content, creating a bigger fan base for any sport. The youth look upon the influencers promoting their favourite sport, a big opportunity for marketing firms, and companies to market their products. With time and evolution of mediums from radio, television to internet, sports broadcasting has evolved with changing horizons.
Decoding Sports Journalism
Sports Journalism was categorised as a different section of journalism when coverage of games like horse racing and boxing was popularised among middle and lower class. Newspapers had separate sections for sports due to the growing popularity, and slowly sports became part of media and business. Sports media like Sports Illustrated and ESPN opened up, which mainly covered all the big sports events like tennis, football. Different types of sports in different types of countries are covered by the local sports media, like American Football, also known as rugby, is covered by the American sports media. Golf, traditionally played in Europe, is mostly covered by European media.
The changing face of media has also changed Sports journalism drastically, with investigative journalism being part of it from covering live events and analysis of matches and performances. In a country like India, traditional media covers Cricket, which is the most popular sport in the country. You would often see the news channels blasting on, before any World Cup.
The news channels take cricket as a topic to discuss various aspects of the game, and often if the match is against Pakistan, the arch rival of India. All the news channels jump on the rivalry factor of two countries rather than treating a sport as a sport. It is however true that football has also a bigger fanbase in India, after cricket and FIFA World Cup got a higher viewership in India.
The print media also covers cricket mostly, on a daily basis, but now sports like chess, horse racing, wrestling, motorsports receive a separate section on the Sports page of the newspaper.
Sports journalism on digital media is vast and diverse, each and every news from sports with different news angles, bites from sportspersons is available online. Any new rumour or topic surfaces in a particular sport, every digital media outlet covers it. Now every sport has multiple digital media outlets, like in the sport of cricket like Sportskeeda, Cricbuzz, ESPN Cricinfo, Sports Adda e.t.c.
This has helped the sports fans to gain a wider spectrum on each area of the sport story. Sports blogs have led sports journalists and content creators to run their own independent business. The use of analytics in sports segments has been frequent, on how analytics affect field performance. Metrics on players performances and teams have been quite useful in deciding the path of the game.
Conclusion
Sports journalism and broadcasting has come a long way from radio to digital media, when people had to wait for the sports match to be broadcasted, which is available at their fingertips. Sports broadcasting is still adapting to the changes in media, sports journalism is enforcing it. The deep and detailed analysis of teams, players and their performances not only brings a greater insight to the teams but the audience as well.
Sports broadcasting has catered a large number of people towards a particular sport. When we talk about cricket, the most popular sport in India, people who don’t know anything about cricket would support IPL teams, the reason is the diverse teams, the integration of culture and team is what made IPL so successful.
