Family and friends gather to watch the weekend’s “big game,” but since sports started being televised, many sports changed to revolve around what TV networks want.
When sports are televised or put on a streaming platform, they become entertainment to a much larger base of people than what fits in a stadium. This not only contributes to the income of TV networks like NBC but teams and players as well. Although televising games has made money for sports organizations, it’s also brought great change.
Athletes used to be picked to play on teams only based on how well they performed on the field, now they’ve become celebrities, meant to perform for a crowd. Athletes like Travis Kelce and his brother Jason Kelce are incredible players and hold large spots on their teams, but they also know how to work advertisements and present themselves to be liked by a large audience.
Rules such as the shot-clock rule in basketball changed when sports were introduced to television to make watching games more entertaining for viewers. Another way sports have changed is by fitting games into a network’s schedule and adding more teams; after the NHL became a televised sport it went from six teams to the current 30. Games have also been moved to more inconvenient times for teams to fit them into TV schedules and the average American Workday . Before 1982 NFL games kicked off at 2 p.m. whereas now Sunday kickoff is around 8 p.m. when more viewers are free to stream the game.
Even though sports seem to have always relied on television and bent over backward for networks, it hasn’t always been like this.
The way sports are structured is almost made for television. They allow natural breaks, such as at the end of an inning in baseball, which is perfect for commercial breaks. Sports create an enemy and hero for the viewer, the team you root for versus whoever’s against them. Games, no matter the sport, have an unpredictable ending, causing an exciting plot that’s easy for networks to pick up and film; unlike other programs that require a script, writers, set, and actors. Sports are happening with or without the camera crew. They are much easier and cheaper for a network to televise. Networks used to rely on sports games to save money on programs.
In the beginning of sports streaming, organizations and teams resisted televising their games, as it made physical attendance drop. Ticket sales are a huge source of income for sports and with the convenience of streaming physical attendance wasn’t needed to catch the game. In earlier years of sports streaming many teams and sports organizations had TV blackouts, where their games weren’t broadcasted to increase physical attendance. The NHL had a blackout policy from 1975 to 2014 that said if 85 percent of tickets weren’t sold 72 hours before a game, it couldn’t be broadcast. Many teams have had athlete strikes where athletes refused to play or practice over arguments between TV networks. The broadcasting of sports has also led to the breakup of many collegiate sports conferences as high-profile teams want to play where there’s more coverage.
Television has surely brought change to the world of sports, for better and for worse; but despite that, the popularity of many sports wouldn’t be where it is today without coverage from networks.
