Sports, Media & Fans: Is anything ‘out of bounds’ in a filterless world?
The post below is my submission to a Call For Papers from Flowtv.org, a forum published by the Radio, Television and Film department at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Topic – Sports Media: Tensions and Transitions, with specific focus on the changes in response to a growing social media presence.
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History and the records we keep form our standards for comparison and our platforms for growth.
We must remind ourselves growth does not equate to improvement, only change.
The relationship between sport and fan has grown in intensity, fostered by advancing and multiplying venues designed to connect the two groups.
However, corporate financial influence, combined with an explosion of communication – specifically user-generated content – is altering this relationship by creating a gap in perception, economy, and culture.
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The grainy, black and white archival film replays a familiar but distant scene:
The Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, ‘old’ Comiskey Stadium, filled with fans whose emotion and reaction to the play on the field mimics the modern day scenes unfolding within the amusement park-digital amphitheater hybrids hosting today’s games.
But notice the differences of those fans of the past: the white male-dominant crowd in formal dress. Letting their emotions spill toward a group of men playing a child’s game.
Today, the emotion of the fans remains the same. But the faces are painted. Bodies are draped with replicas of their favorite team’s uniforms. Eyes affixed to cameraphones and jumbotrons as much to the games unfolding on the manicured fields below; these fans attend the games to both see and be seen.
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So when did the change occur?
Television. The first mass direct connection between sport and fan.
Radio, although with a wide reach, sports were narrated to us through a filter. Dictated by a host whose singular perceptions formed the fan’s mythical image of the play.
Television allowed the fans’ debate to begin – you saw it for yourself!
Only through attending the game did fans of the past receive the evidence of athletic achievement.
The audiences grew exponentially – the business of sports began.
Television rights became cherished. Advertisers ran – cash in hand –to appeal to the masses.
Cable television appeared; professional and major college sports hit the jackpot. ESPN, SkySports, Fox Sports fed an ever-growing demand for more games, more news, more connections to the games people play.
The expanding audience presented a financial opportunity. Leagues took advantage. Salaries grew; athletes became million-dollar commodities.
Radio’s opportunity also appeared. Instead of turning toward the games themselves, the dial turned into the fans.
The phone lines lit up as Sports-Talk Radio built the fan’s original playing field. The masses were handed a platform for their unfiltered message; now the fan had an audience to play for.
With athletes, coaches, and leagues receiving more attention, the celebrity culture of sports expanded.
NBA Hall of Fame inductee Michael Jordan is credited with being the first ‘cross-over’ athlete, with his fame and influence expanding beyond the arenas and into a mainstream culture.
Jordan’s image moved away from athletic-related products, to underwear, phone companies and mass-consumed soft drinks.
The athlete became a mega-star, America’s royalty.
Jordan was more popular than the sport he dominated.
And this was nearly a decade before the Internet became a curiosity.
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During the introduction of the ‘cross-over’ athlete, a highly visible television ad for consumer cameras featured tennis star Andre Agassi. The ad’s prophetic tagline: “Image Is Everything.”
As the cameras kept recording, and ‘highlights’ slipped into our daily jargon, fans found themselves as participants. The crowd became the personality of the event. An expectation grew: to see and be seen.
The advancement of communication technology – specifically the Internet – has opened the power of public publishing.
Personal blogs, message boards, social networking profile pages all allow the individual voice to be heard – unfiltered. Fans were given a new forum for debate, support and opinion to swell.
As news-gathering organizations continued attempting to adhere to the ethics of journalism, the demands – coming from two distinctly different groups, consumers and industry shareholders – screamed for broadening coverage. Even after the final scores were determined, athletes remained media figures.
Stretching to find further information, the voice of the fan is beginning to become a voice of record.
Blogs and message boards are being treated as additional sources of information – not for game strategy or athletic performance, but for opinion and fan feedback.
The fan now has more than a voice and an audience. The fan has power.
The relationship is changing.
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Opinion leads to feeling. Feeling leads to action. Action leads to results.
Fans – especially those whose dollars support a sports franchise – have affected the hiring and firing of coaches, along with the draft and trade choices of team executives.
Armed with empowerment, the tools of expression continue to stoke the flames of “fan-damonium.”
Everyone can publish, so everyone can control a message.
A New York Times article from September 16, 2009 profiled three high-profile college quarterbacks, each extremely wary of ever-present camera phones, not knowing if and when anonymous photos can be plastered across public Internet sites.
Former Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps were both ‘caught’ (Eustachy drinking at a college party, Phelps smoking marijuana) by cellphone cameras. The resulting pictures found mass audience on the Internet.
Eustachy was let go by Iowa State; Phelps lost endorsement opportunities.
Social networking and corresponding social media platforms allow everyone to reach an audience cheaply and without filters.
And remember, Sports figures are people, too.
To either combat rumors and misperceptions, further advance popularity and financial opportunity, or to provide a direct, unfiltered connection with fans, athletes are publishing.
Former Major League pitcher Curt Schilling, NFL players Chad Ochocinco and Chris Cooley, and NBA center Shaquille O’Neal are only examples of how athletes use social media communication platforms increase or maintain presence within our society.
However, these platforms do not guarantee any celebrity’s ability to completely control their image. A Washington Post Article from September 17, 2009 detailed the ‘fake’ Twitter accounts of members of the Washington Capitals.
Not viewed as an invasion of privacy, and allowed by Twitter, the ‘fake’ accounts are created by others pretending to be the athletes (although in the ‘bio’ of the Twitter accounts, it is stated the holder of the account is not the actual athlete).
The Post article noted some athletes, including O’Neal, create Twitter pages to ensure the public other accounts bearing their names were created by imposters.
The fan’s actions can force athletes to change habits or create boundaries. The relationship is changing.
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The business of sports creates an ever-growing demand for success.
Success on the field intertwines with success off the field – the profit margin.
Any advantage is treasured; distraction is avoided. Sponsors, season-ticket holders and rights fees are just as important as victories and championships.
The dilemma for the high-cost, high-profit professional sports leagues and teams is: How can you control your valuable image in an era of technology where the message is almost uncontrollable?
Under the shield of competition, teams are instructing their employees (athletes, for the most part) to limit their publishing to non-team related subjects, less an opponent gain a competitive advantage.
To help control a positive image, leagues are creating social media standards and policies, attempting to avoid any negative attention with their employees (athletes, for the most part) expressing any frustration or other negative feelings.
Negative attention can lead to drops in support…and revenue.
The expanding audience is a financial opportunity. Leagues are taking advantage.
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The sound bites, opinions, rumors are coming from every computer, television, phone and text message – each in a different direction with different intent.
o Fans attend games, publishing nearly real-time photos and thoughts, becoming an interactive part of the ‘game-time experience’.
o Athletes provide their reactions through a few keystrokes, bypassing the waiting post-game news conference microphones.
o Leagues sell Internet broadcast rights, create web sites, and monitor chat rooms to help maintain additional revenue streams.
o Media utilize additional forms of communication, attempting to maintain a valid presence as both an objective source of information and a clearinghouse of additional thoughts and ideas.
We are passionate about sports.
The fans’ voices blanket the playing field with emotion.
Today’s emotion extends beyond the stadium. Roaring through phones, text messages, desktops and computer speakers.
The fan doesn’t need to walk through a turnstile to be close to the playing field. Wi-Fi and broadband replace ticket stubs. Screen grabs and snapshots replace narrated images scratched from a radio.
There is another television ad reflecting the current relationship between fan and sport. This ad does not feature a team or an athlete, but promotes communication.
The appropriate tagline: “Can You Hear Me Now?”
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