Sports and the Media

On October 24th in my American Sport in the 21st Century class we discussed the topic of sports and the media. We related the two topics to the question of; could they survive without each other? Sport and the media are very closely related and are symbiotic of each other. They are two of the most successful businesses in the United States. The media provides information, opinions, and entertainment for the world to enjoy. Media generates enormous sales in circulation and advertising is based on extensive treatment of sport. These statements were all talked about thoroughly in class. In particular we talked about social media, which is a group of Internet applications that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content. With this we talked about different social media categories.

Social Media Categories
1. Communication Services (Facebook, Foursquare, Blogging, Twitter, Google buzz, Pinterest)
2. Entertainment (MySpace, YouTube, Virtual Worlds, Vemo, Instagram)
3. Professional Networks (LinkedIn, Plaxo)
4. Multimedia (Skype, Linestream, Flicker)
5. Smart phone Apps (Fanvision)
6. Mobile Couponing (GroupOn, Living Social)
These sites are doubling every six (6) months, and Facebook adds one million visitors per week. Meanwhile Twitter has 554 million users and gets 150,000 sign-ups per day. Sporting teams are using most of these tools to better there interaction with fans and to help improve their revenue streams.
In the text on page 394 Coakley discusses that sports and media rely on each other, "Sports and the media are interconnected parts of our lives. Sports provide valuable media content, and many sports depend on the media for publicity and revenues" (2010 Coakley p. 394). On the same page he states there are five (5) characteristics or goals that the producers, editors, directors, and anyone in the editing or over viewing media content is attempting to fulfill.
1. Make financial profits
2. Influence cultural values
3. Provide a public service
4. Enhance personal status and reputation
5. Express themselves in technical, artistic, or personal ways (2010 Coakley p. 394)



Shows fan usage on different social outlets.

In an April 27th, 2012 article by Sam Laird called, How Social Media Is Changing Sports, he discusses the social media templates and outlets that are impacting sports for the players, teams, and fans. He goes on to say that most fans are on social media sites or mobile apps while watching a sporting event. This allows them to comment or "like" a page incredibly fast and spread news and information throughout the Internet in an instant. These new technologies are taking print media out of the game. Print media is magazines, newspapers, and flyer's. These all take a bit more time to get information out due to delivery time. The sports world is becoming more and more advanced with the social media outlets while most teams and players have social media channels for their fans to get information, get tickets, purchase merchandise, or interact. For the full article you can follow this link: Sports and Media