Soccer, soccer, soccer…oh and did I mention soccer?!
Monday morning: What is the best way to start your day if you want to get informed about the world’s news? Well, for me it is having a look into our local newspaper. US elections are around the corner, the exhaust scandal of Volkswagen rases anger and presidents around the world seem to not care about democratic rights. This morning I thought about finding one of these top issues on the front page of my newspaper.
Well…as soon as I held the newspaper in my hand I realized that none of these topics would be of the same importance as another topic: soccer! A big picture of two soccer players in action covered about two thirds of the front page of my newspaper. Are you kidding me?? Being disgusted by only having a climpse at the newspaper I decided to open my notebook in order to find another source for todays news. While scrolling down welt.de I looked for the most-read articles and at this time I almost died another heart attack early in the morning!! Among the top 4 most-read articles „10 reasons why the HSV finally has to relegate from league 1“ can be found….Really people? Is that what interests you the most?
I know that media industry heavily focusses on topics that cover the peoples interets. Newspapers should be sold, articles should be read and videos should be watched by a wide range of people because all that matters in the news industry is (like in any other industry) — money! I mean, I am not an expert on topics that sell best or an expert on how many males or females read the newspaper or have a look at the most-read articles but there is one thing I know: soccer is an indispensable topic for Germans. I am aware of the fact that soccer is THE German „Volkssport“ and is by far the most watched sport in our country. I am aware of the fact that the Germans seem to be quite good at it and that we won the world championship in 2014. But does it need to be THIS prominent everywhere? Aren’t there more important topics to be worth a front page or a most-read article? In my opinion the status of soccer in Germany is excessively high. In every newspaper there is a space for sports, on every homepage there is a category and every TV has a sports channel. So… why can’t it please stay there? Please don’t missunderstand me, I do not want to bann soccer from media (of course I watched the world championship games in 2014). I am just questionning if soccer really needs to fill front pages or public TV channels (besides the sports news). For me personally, several other topics are of higher relevance.
