Television and the Transformation of Sport

Garry Whannel
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Garry Whannel: Garry Whannel is a professor of media cultures at the University of Bedfordshire in the United Kingdom

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2009, vol. 625, issue 1, 205-218

Abstract: Sport played a significant part in the growth of television, especially during its emergence as a dominant global medium between 1960 and 1980. In turn, television, together with commercial sponsorship, transformed sport, bringing it significant new income and prompting changes in rules, presentation, and cultural form. Increasingly, from the 1970s, it was not the regular weekly sport that commanded the largest audiences but, rather, the occasional major events, such as the Olympic Games and football’s World Cup. In the past two decades, deregulation and digitalization have expanded the number of channels, but this fragmentation, combined with the growth of the Internet, has meant that the era in which shared domestic leisure was dominated by viewing of the major channels is closing. Yet, sport provides an exception, an instance when around the world millions share a live and unpredictable viewing experience.

Keywords: sport; Olympic Games; football; mega-events (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:625:y:2009:i:1:p:205-218

DOI: 10.1177/0002716209339144

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