Sports and media

Sports and media emerged as a significant object of scholarship and research in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, when it became abundantly clear that modern professional sports was deeply dependent on its consistent, widespread mediation, and that the institution of media was deeply reliant on sports for content and audience attraction. The relationship between these institutions, both the products of modernity and its rationalization of play and communication, has been analyzed in contrasting terms as “a marriage made in heaven” and as an entrenched battle for institutional power. Sports was the more vulnerable party, with its most romantic adherents arguing that the media were now dominating sports and manipulating its forms in the service of entertainment and audience maximization. Therefore, a considerable amount of analytical attention has been paid to the shaping of sports by the media, as economic dependency (especially on revenue from the sale of broadcast sports rights) produced pressure to make sports more “telegenic” and of interest across a wider spectrum of cultural tastes. The institution of media was regarded by critical scholars as a key agent in the commercialization of sports, with some championing the values of amateurism rather than professionalism, and the notion that sports should be an area of human activity free of the demands to make large profits and lucrative careers