Sport: Why success doesn’t matter

Do you want to be a famous sports star? Well make sure you don’t choose to play Netball. You may be among the best players in the world but if it’s media coverage you’re after, just forget about it. The Australian netball team, the Diamonds, has been ranked world number one for the past few years however last year they barely managed to obtain a broadcasting deal at all. This is in stark contrast to the AFL, which isn’t even a world-recognised sport and yet is the most televised sport on Australian television.

Why is this you ask? Well it’s all to do with audience demand, not sporting success, and as viewers we can look at it like this this; the larger the audience the more media coverage the sport receives. On the other hand we can look at it like broadcasting networks; the larger the audience the more money we make.

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Large audience = Increased media coverage[/caption]

No matter how you look at it traditionally broadcast media’s purpose was to provide independent, varied and accessible coverage of events. However the variety and scope of sport on free to air television today is questionable. Granted SBS and the ABC do feature unique sporting events from time to time, but stations such as NINE, TEN and SEVEN still invest in popular sports to meet the demands of their audience.

There’s no greater example of this popular vs. unpopular sports in the media than the Socceroos. Currently the Football Federation of Australia holds a$160 million broadcasting deal with Fox Sports ­Australia and SBS, which entitled them to the coverage of the highly publicised Asian Cup. Not surprisingly this coverage is greatly due to the cult following of soccer in Australia and not the Socceroo’s current 65th ranking on the world ladder. This is in stark contrast to the current world number one Australian men’s hockey team, the Kookaburras, who have a much smaller following and receive dismal media coverage.

So what motivates audiences to demand these particular sports over another?

Other than the obvious reasons; interest and participation, we can blame this on sports marketing. Due to the evolution of the internet, audiences now have 24 hour access to any possible sport they can dream of, ranging from live game streams, instant result updates, immediate playbacks and news feed updates at a touch of a button. To overcome this issue and keep audiences, broadcasters have had to change their game and sporting codes have had to recreate themselves into a marketable business to keep up. Unfortunately though, as we can see some sports have done this far better than others regardless of their success; hence this argument.

A perfect example of this sporting business in Australia is the widely loved NINE prodigy the NRL. Just like news entertainment model, the NRL has channelled entertainment, audience engagement and different modes of media (online, social etc.) to overcome the wondering eyes of the modern day audience. This has meant NINE has managed to retain much of their existing audience and by adapting to the times, attract new viewers.

This environment and engagement created by this showmanship type of programming actually makes the viewers want to sit down and tune instead of reading the results on twitter. A great example of this engagement is Nine’s the Footy Show, which creates conversation around games, discuss serious NRL issues, puts a face to the game and more importantly keeps the audience coming back. As a result a larger audience is attracted and as we discussed earlier this means more media coverage.

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The Footy Show: Fans get to know the players through quizzes and games and preview the matches to come.[/caption]

Is this right though? Isn’t the whole point of broadcast media to report a wide variety of events? And is it fair that networks fight over popular sports instead of sharing the wealth? Or is sport simply trying to survive in a new world of competition?

Well, if you are Nine’s chief executive David Gyngell than you believe there is nothing wrong with a little bit of commercialisation to beat your competitor. As he stated the NINE network had to “commercialise” its coverage to ensure it obtained and maintained a healthy audience. So they (networks) would prefer to buy into a constant audience grabber than televising a one off sporting event such as a Netball World cup. Even though televising something like this would meet a dominant audience demand, the shrinking audience after the conclusion of the event is too much of a gamble for broadcasters.

So should all sports adapt this business model mentality to attract audiences? Or should we as Australians be celebrating these great sporting successes regardless of their game tactics?