Session 6: International Sport and Media

Golden triangle sport Media sponsor

Media technology advancement Print media Radio Tv New media

Media and sport: early days Newspapers and sports papers first brought reports to a curious public as early as in 19th century. The first sports broadcast on radio, in 1922 in UK

Partnership between Media and sport : early days Sport pages Sport magazines sports stories attract sport fans and help to popularize sports and sport events, and as a result increase media sales

Emergence of TV The first sports television broadcast in Britain was in 1937 when 25 minutes of a men’s single match from Wimbledon was televised. The first televised sporting event in the United States is a baseball game in New York City between Princeton and Columbia universities in May 1939, and there were only 400 receiving sets in the city(McComb, 2004 :108)

Arrival of TV era The impact of television on sport began to become striking in the 1960s with the growing ownership of television sets. While only about 9 percent of Americans owned a television set in 1950, the figure was 65 percent in 1955, and in 1965 it already reached 93 percent (McComb, 2004 :109)

The FIFA World Cup was televised for the first time in 1954, and the Rome Olympics in 1960 were the first Games to take advantage of the ‘Eurovision link’ to broadcast live around Europe (Whannel, 164; Smart,5ye)

Initial suspicion Why major sports events were not televised until decades later after the birth of TV? Who should pay?

Scarce event Athens 2004 Summer Games achieved a record high television audience of 3.9 billion globally, compared with 3.6 billion for the 2000 Sydney Games. The cumulative TV audience estimate was 40 billion.

Described by FIFA as ‘the world’s No Described by FIFA as ‘the world’s No. 1 sports event’, the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany is said to have had a total cumulative television audience of 26.29 billion (24.2 billion in- home and 2.1 billion out-of-home viewers).

Discussion: How tv has transformed sport? Why is media sport so appealing?

Transformation of sport consumption Television does far more than merely relay major sport events to the audience, as it radically re-constructs them, combining live and recorded ‘feeds’ from venue and studio, adding replay, slow-motion, montage, commentary, and discussion

Whannel (162) argued that within a television landscape where much is recorded, safe, and predictable, only news and sport offer uncertainty, risk and ‘liveness’, and a powerful sense of being there as it happens. the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition

ABC created the first network sports division in USA in 1959 ABC created the first network sports division in USA in 1959. In 1960 ABC was third in the ratings, and by 1976 the first.

Time is money, it’s calculated by seconds! The powerful effect of tv sport is Super Bowl games. It is the biggest single event in US sport, and by 1991, it cost US$875,000 for a 30-second spot in the telecast (Forster and Pope, 2004:50) Fox Sports averaged around $4 million for 30 seconds worth of ad time during the game 2014. http://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/super-bowl-ad-chart-buying-super-bowl-2014/244024/ EPL 100million broadcasting fee per match

The television industry has to rely on high viewing rates to obtain advertising revenue

Market led price war Growing competition between television networks for exclusive broadcasting rights for major sport events (whannel, 166)

USA Olympic tv rights fees Summer Year City, Network Hours Fee 1960 Rome (CBS) 20 $394K 1964 Tokyo (NBC) 14 $1.5M 1968 Mexico City (ABC) 43.75 $4.5M 1972 Munich (ABC) 62.75 $7.5M 1976 Montreal (ABC) 76.5 $25M 1980 Moscow (NBC) 150 $87M 1984 Los Angeles (ABC) 180 $225M 1988 Seoul (NBC) 179.5 $300M 1992 Barcelona (NBC) 161 $401M 1996 Atlanta (NBC) 171 $456M 2000 Sydney (NBC/cable) 442 $705M 2004 Athens (NBC/cable) 806.5 $793M 2008 Beijing (NBC/cable) tba $894M 2012 tba (NBC/cable) $1.181B

In 2003, seven and nine years before the actual events with the host cities to be selected, NBC paid $820 million for the 2010 Winter Games and $1.181 billion for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Before any revenue is distributed to federations, the USOC receives 17 percent of all sponsorship money and 12.75 percent of all television money.

The total rights fees for the 2010-12 Olympics rose to spectacular $2 The total rights fees for the 2010-12 Olympics rose to spectacular $2.001 billion, representing a 33% boost from the $1.508 billion for the 2006-2008 Games

International Sport Organizations: Where does the money come from? In the past Now IOC broadcasting 50% sponsorship 40%, tickets: 8%, licensing 2%

the IOC revenue, for the period 2001-2004 ($4.2billion in total)

Tiered Ifs: do you attract enough TV audience? Following the Beijing Games, the organization split $290 million among 28 federations, Track and field, which is represented by the International Association of Athletics Federations, was the only sport in the first tier, which meant it earned approximately $25 million. FINA and six other sports fell in the second tier and earned approximately $13 million each. The remaining 20 federations fell in the third tier and each earned close to $9 million.

Sky-high professional sports broadcasting Not just Olympic TV fees, but also professional sports broadcasting are soaring. Both English premier League and Chinese Super League achieved record highs! $7.9 Billion/ three years for EPL vs. RMB8 billion/5 yrs for CSL

Relationship between media and sport Interdependent Major source of revenue for International sport organizations Turn sport event into global spectacle Transformation of sport consumption

Discussion: Media impact on sport: is it all good news? Disparity between sports Negative influence also include: couch potato, sacrifice of wellbeing of athletes for TV companies, …

Media in prospect New trend: 3D New media

End of session Thank you!