The Role of Media in Sport by Marcia Henin

Sport is one of the well-published issues in the Net. Sport issues gain a lot of publicity and discussions in the media. The examples are numerous: thousands of football news article depict the reactions of trainers to a particular event. Important soccer games are an everyday issue in TV channels. New technologies are used everywhere in coverage of sports: tennis streaming video presents the particular strokes of favored tennis stars, such as Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova. At the days of serious matches, fans enjoy watching the game of their favored teams in tennis or football online. We might ask ourselves: what is the role the Media plays in Sport?

One probable answer would be that the media successfully exploits the public need for entertainment. People have always felt the need to be entertained, starting from the days of gladiators, when the public’ general demand was to see people die in front of them in exchange for their money. As the years went by, the forms of the entertainment changed and became less cruel, but the principle of the crowd asking for Panem et circenses (i.e. “bread and circuses”) remained the same. In this matter, sports news is the best possible entertainment, and watching sport online or on TV is the best possible way to witness the actual thing happening.

And here comes the next possible answer: media adheres to the needs of the wide public, fulfilling the desire to watch the “actual thing” on-line. Although a football match might occur in Milano, and tennis game may take place in Moscow, media brings the tennis game and the football match straight to your living room, without the need to get up from sofa and buy the ticket to Milano or wherever you want to get to. Media makes use of our need to witness the actual thing by serving as a mediator between the sporting event, which happens somewhere out there, and us, the viewers.

Being a central part of our everyday experience, media brings sports coverage to our living room and shows it to us whenever we choose. I’d say it’s a good thing, but you – choose for yourselves.