Mohd Nor Ariffin Bin Md Ali

14899
Chemical Engineering
Sports Media
Importance and Advantage of Media in Sports
Sports industry is on boom right now. Almost all the major sports are getting a good
deal of attention from fans all around, especially with FIFA World Cup on its full bloom. In
fact, sports have developed into a major industry and many other businesses have sprung up
because of it. Media plays an essential role in promoting a sport.
How would you know what is basketball if you are living in a country far away from
the United States? That is the job of media. Media both visual and print are responsible for
making a sport known worldwide. Many sports channels have sprung up since 1990 and they
are fast evolving. Sports have become a business because of media.
Television, Internet, Newspaper and even radio plays an important role in the
development of sports. Of the dozen channels popping up on TV every fortnight at least half
of them are Sports channels. Most of these channels just take the whole sports watching
experience to the next level. With the amazing presentation style and exquisite angle of each
game these channels catch the attention of the viewers.
With the growth of internet publicity of sports have also grown drastically. With live
streaming and live scorecards available on the net, one can know the position of their
favourite team even on the move, which makes the whole experience a whole lot better. A
newspaper too has at least two to three pages dedicated to sports alone. So, even in a rare
chance that anyone does not have access to TV and internet he/she can have an exclusive idea
about the favourite sports on the sports page of the newspaper.
Let alone TV channels and sports pages, even advertisements of various brands like,
cool drinks, shoes, t-shirts and energy drinks normally features sports like cricket , football
and basketball. Today many sportsmen are brand ambassadors of various famous brands.
Many major magazines and books also take part in the promotion of sports. There are a lot of
motion pictures which are inspired by major sports which makes sports more cool and
desirable in front of movie fans as well.
Media helps the sports teams to generate needed revenue. It also helps people to know
and learn about the sport. It makes the players a role model for young people who look up to
them for inspiration. Another big help is that media provides people with coaching of the
sport, as they can watch coaches teach their players, on the television, internet etc. In a
nutshell, media has made sport what it is today and without its help sport could have never
reached the heart of millions as it has now.

With increased exposure of the game comes increased participation. For example,
when a national team does well at the Olympics the number of children taking up the
sport increases. This is at a time when there is national worry about the health of young
people with regards to what they eat and the level of exercise they participate in. The
commercialisation of sport which leads to increased exposure, encourages children to get
more exercise and reduce obesity. It can also help young people find a hobby which gets
them off the streets and discourages them from crime.

Disadvantage of Sports Media

When an athlete is riding high at the top of her game, the endorsements she carries
share the spotlight. All is well for the advertiser as long as the athlete maintains her
reputation. However, once a period of low productivity or scandal arrives, it can carry the fate
of the sponsor downward along with it. Although the eventual decline of any athlete is
expected, selecting the right athlete to represent your brand the way you want it to be seen is
essential. It is important to sign an athlete whose persona matches your own brand image. For
example, a family-oriented retail business should avoid athletes with a history of legal trouble
in favour of someone who mirrors the values of the company a bit more closely.

Team sports open the door for all manner of new possibilities - and vulnerabilities in
marketing. Your fate as a brand may be tied at least in part to the overall record or prestige of
the team. When the team does great, so do you. When the team hits a low point, the number
of tickets sold and viewers watching the game drops and your return on investment drops
along with it. Of course, such low periods are part of the natural cycle of sports teams as
talent comes and goes, but this cycle must be considered by the small business marketer.
Once your brand is associated with a given team, you cannot easily switch to another if things
turn bad without risk of alienating of the fans of both teams.
Although sports in general have moved toward the inclusion of both sexes in recent
years, they remain a male-centric advertising vehicle. The most sought-after demographic in
the market is still men ages 18-34. Sports advertising provides a direct path into this
demographic. This is great news for brands that want to attract male consumers, but not so
great if you aspire to reach a broader audience. Companies who engage in sports advertising
often must also engage in other strategies and campaigns to reach the rest of the market. This
means added expense and production demands on oft-limited small business marketing
resources.
Just about all sports are seasonal. They have periods of intense activity and focus,
followed by periods when they essentially disappear from the public consciousness. As a
marketing strategy, relying on sports ads alone can leave your brand with no vehicle to the
market during the entire offseason of whatever sport you decide to pursue. This is avoidable
when you engage in campaigns outside the realm of sports, or if you sponsor teams or
athletes in different sports whose seasons do not run concurrently. The expense of managing

more than one high-profile marketing campaign at a time is prohibitive for the average small
business.
The cost of sports advertising at the highest levels can be prohibitive. While major
corporations are often able to absorb the cost of sports advertising and sponsorships into the
annual budget, many small businesses lack the ability or means to do so. This fact removes
the most prestigious athletes and ad campaigns from the mix and relegates the small business
owner to lower-end options such as local teams, second-tier athletes and the cheapest items
on the marketing menu. Consider whether your small business would be better served
spending the same money on a single small sign in a major league park or an entire series of
local TV commercials that run a full year.
Media and Sports Corruption
Sporting events and games are influenced by current economic, social and political
situations. Media corrupts sport negatively through payments made for advertising and it can
be argued that the purpose of sport has disappeared completely. When the last time you heard
that sport was for exercise, for fun on a competitive level? Now it seems it's only about
succeeding at sport to make money and not for the competition itself. People say its not a
sport anymore its a business because of how vastly media has taken over sports and taken
the fun out of it
The media can be cruel or be nice to you but at the end of the day the media through
the influence of advertising money has promoted changes in sport. Hence Media has
corrupted sport through making it being about the money not the fun of the competition.
During the period of the post-Second World War, radio, television and video were introduced.
The audio-visual facilities became very popular as they provided information and
entertainment such that a large audience was available to advertisers. Of late, it is the Internet
which has become the latest and most popular of the mass media. Here, information has been
generated through various websites and search engines and again advertisements can reach
large numbers of people. Due to the progress of science and technology, throughout history
media and advertising going with it has evolved and reached the present-day world of
internet, cellular phones, blogs and podcast. As Media evolves more the more people get
more involved in sport and watching it. Media has influenced sport in many ways:
By allowing many more people to watch events
By bringing different types of sport to public attention people far from the event, even
people in foreign countries can watch
Through the advertising opportunities the above points have raised, individuals and teams
have access to sponsorship and payment for advertising which has raised the level of
equipment, facilities, professionalism and competitiveness but media has changed over the
years in the way it has influenced sport. People love winners hence they are sought out by
advertisers and sponsors so the players are encouraged to win more and more Media has been
an influence in creating harmful problems and then only in some cases helping to correct

problems
Steroids is an example of this. In Major League Baseball this made players feel they
had to hit home runs to gain the approval of the media and the fans. Thus they took steroids
to help them bulk up. Even though the media addressed the issue they were the ones to cause
the problem in the first place through the competition for advertising money.
Media owners are also seen as corrupt. A leaked document, which was posted online,
showed that a football club transferred five-digit amounts to a sports daily for its favourable
attitude. According to journalists, media outlets sometimes blackmail companies or local
authorities by threatening negative coverage unless the target buys advertising in the
publication.
According to a report, the lack of media ownership transparency is one of the biggest
problems. There are a number of media outlets owned by off-shore companies, anonymous
joint stock companies or bogus owners. Even if the owners are known, it is sometimes
difficult to see their interests and their finances. Public registers show that in Bulgaria the
majority of media outlets are making losses. The fact that a number of prestigious foreign
media companies have withdrawn from the Bulgarian market in recent years made things
even fuzzier.