Sports Communication around the World

Our book states that although mass media cover a multitude of areas and beats such as national and local new, politics and religion, science and entertainment, and business and finance, one of the major roles of mass media is to cover sport (Lucella, Miloch, Pederson, 2007). Sports mass media therefore holds the capability of molding the fans view of the sports they love. The symbiosis of sports and media play on each other, selling newspapers, increasing profits, and improving ratings for papers and television networks. So where does newspaper coverage fit into all of this?

Its simple. They know that the bottom line is to create hype around certain sports topics. By using the internet to find information and interview people through e-mail, the internet has changed the way in which we receive news. For example, take today's issue of cyclist Landis has been all over digital papers such as the New York Times, while papers in London such as the Daily Mirror are more concerned with the Barcelona, Liverpool, and the start of the World Cup. So why the change in sports coverage although both sports are known worldwide? I believe that it's the power of those who report the news and what sports are important to the audience. In America we are trying to appeal to the fan that is more focused on scandal and the athlete who has tarnished its image. If you think about the news that has been reported lately, we see the fallen athletes of Tiger Woods, Lawrence Taylor, Santonio Holmes, and Ben Roethlisberger. While some of these scandals take place across the world, there just aren't that many athletes to focus on. In America, we have the luxury of not only being the melting pot of people, but also the melting pot of sport due to our own diversity. While not every sport is always in the limelight, opening any American paper shows that almost every major sport will get its time to shine. The main factor however, is that the sports writers are posting what the fans want, if soccer coverage or the latest scandal, its what is shown. Even so, with these limitations, only time will tell where sports coverage will go five or ten years from now.