Test #3

amateur

athletes whose eligibility requires that they make no money from their athletic performances or in connection with their status as an athlete.

In some cases, young people use new media to represent sports involving transgressive actions such as skating in empty private swimming pools at night or doing parkour

an activity in which young men and a few young women use their bodies to move rapidly and efficiently through existing landscapes

SPORTS AND MEDIA: A TWO-WAY RELATIONSHIP

The media and commercialization are related top- ics in the sociology of sport. The media intensify and extend the process and consequences of com- mercialization.

Private investment

in sports occurs when investors expect financial profits

IMAGES AND NARRATIVES IN MEDIA SPORTS

To say that sports are "mediated" is to say that they consist of selected images and narratives.

Electronic media

radio, television, and film.

Television

"Broadcasting right now . . . is about event television, live television, sports events. . . . That's what's really attracting . . . the real eyeballs and the real advertising dollars."

producers, editors, program directors, programmers, camerapersons, writers, journalists, commentators, sponsors, bloggers, and website pro- viders. These people select for us information, inter- pretation, entertainment, and even opportunities for interactivity to achieve one or more of five goals:

(1) make financial profits; (2) influence cultural values and social organization; (3) provide a public service; (4) enhance personal status and reputation; and (5) express themselves creatively or politically.

Changes in commercialized spectator sports usually do a combination of these six things:

(1) speed up the action; (2) increase scoring; (3) balance competition; (4) maximize drama; (5) heighten attachment to players and teams; and (6) provide "commercial time-outs."

When spectators say they saw "a good game," they usually mean that it was one in which

(1) they were attached personally or emotionally to an ath- lete or a team; (2) the outcome was in doubt until the last minutes or seconds; (3) the stakes were so high that players were totally committed to and engrossed in the action; or (4) there were skilled and dramatic performances. Events containing all four of these factors are remembered and discussed for many years.

Economic Factors and the Globalization of Commercial Sports

(1) those who control, sponsor, and promote sports seek new ways to expand markets and maximize profits, and (2) transnational corporations use sports as vehicles for introducing their products and ser- vices around the world. This makes sports a form of global cultural trade that is exported and imported in a manner similar to other products.

Strikes or lockouts occur in either of two situations:

(a) when business conditions change to the point that owners or players decide that the existing CBA is no longer fair or reasonable, and (b) when a CBA has expired and the owners and players can- not come to an agreement.

Video Games as Simulated Sports

*the graphics and images in video games now come close to matching images in televised sports. *TV producers now use special filters to make the action in televised games look like video games *some athletes use video sport games to train *some children today are introduced to sports through video games *being good at playing video sport games is a source of status among many young people *playing sport video games provides regular social occasions for many people, especially young males

Income: Individual Sports

- Many athletes do not make enough to pay expenses - There are increasing disparities between top money winners and other athletes - Top male heavyweight boxers have traditionally made the most money As with team sports, publicity is given to the highest-paid athletes in individual sports. However, the reality is that many players in these sports don't make enough money from tournament winnings to pay all their expenses and support themselves comfortably.

Although spectators watch sports for many reasons, their interest is tied to a combination of four factors:

-Attachment to those involved ("Do I know, like, or strongly identify with players and/or teams?") -The uncertainty of an event's outcome ("Will it be a close contest?" and "Who might win?") -The stakes associated with an event ("How much money, status, or danger is involved in the contest?") -The anticipated display of excellence, heroics, or dramatic expression by the athletes ("Are the players and/or teams skilled and entertaining?" and "Might they set a record?" or "be the best team ever?")

Internal Structure and Goals of Sports

-Commercialization influences the internal structure and goals of newly developed sports, but it has less influence on long-established sports. New sports developed explicitly for commercial purposes are organized to maximize whatever a target audience will find entertaining. This is not the only factor that influences the internal structure and goals of new sports, but it is the primary one. -Commercialization also forces more established sports to make action more exciting and under- standable for spectators, but the changes seldom alter the basic internal organization and goals of the sports.

Income: Team Sports

-a large majority of pro athletes make limited income -super-contracts and mega-salaries for a few athletes have distorted popular ideas about athlete income -income among top athletes has risen because -------legal status and rights have improved -------league revenues have increased Despite publicity given to the supercontracts of some athletes in the top profes- sional leagues, salaries vary widely across the levels and divisions of professional team sports.

Sources of Income for Team Owners

-gate receipts/ticket sales -sale of media rights -stadium revenues -licensing fees and merchandise sales (1) gate receipts; (2) media revenues; (3) stadium revenue; (4) licens- ing fees; and (5) merchandise sales. The amounts and proportions of each of these revenue sources vary from league to league and team to team.

Team owners and their supporters justify stadium subsidies and other forms of public assistance with a five-point argument:

1. A stadium and pro team creates jobs; those who hold the jobs spend money and pay taxes in the city so that everyone benefits. 2. Stadium construction infuses money into the local economy; this money is spent over and over as it circulates, generating tax revenues in the process. 3. The team attracts businesses to the city, and this increases local revenues. 4. The team attracts regional and national media attention, which boosts tourism and contributes to overall economic development. 5. The team creates positive psychic and social benefits, boosting social unity and feelings of pride and well-being in the local population.

Because media sports are part of everyday experience today, it's important to consider the following:

1. Media production and representation of sports 2. Ideological themes underlying media coverage 3. Media consumers and the ways they integrate media content into their lives

However, impact studies done by inde- pendent researchers generally reach the following conclusions:

1. Teams and stadiums create jobs, but apart from highly paid athletes and team executives, these jobs are low paid, part-time, and seasonal. Additionally, many athletes on the team don't live in the city or spend their money there. 2. The companies that design and build stadiums are seldom local, and construction materials and workers on major projects often come from outside the region or even from outside the country. Therefore, much of the money spent on a stadium or arena does not circulate as sta- dium boosters predict. 3. Stadiums attract other businesses, but most are restaurant and entertainment franchises head- quartered in other cities. These franchises often have enough cash to undercut and drive out locally owned businesses. Some out-of-town people come to the city to attend games, but most people who buy tickets live close enough to make day trips to games, and their purchases inside the stadium don't benefit businesses out- side the stadium gates. 4. Stadiums and teams generate public relations for the city, but this has mixed results for tour- ism because some people stay away from cities on game days. Most important, regional eco- nomic development often is limited by a new facility because fans who spend money in and around the stadium have fewer dollars to spend in their own neighborhoods. A stadium often helps nearby businesses, but it often hurts out- lying businesses. For example, when a family of four spends about $10,000 for average NBA season tickets, and another $4000 for meals and parking for 41 home games, it will spend less money on dinners and entertainment close to home—if they have any money left! 5. A pro sport team can make some people feel good and may enhance general perceptions of a city, but this is difficult to measure and little is known about its consequences for the city as a whole. Additionally, the feelings of fans often vary with the success of a team, and the feelings of those who are not fans may not be improved by a men's sport team that reaffirms traditional masculinity and values related to domination and conquest.

At this time, the main issues negotiated in CBAs include the following:

1. The definition of league revenues, "and the percentage of those revenues that must be allo- cated to players' salaries and benefits" 2. The extent to which teams can share revenues with one another 3. Salary limits for rookies signing their first pro contract, salary restrictions for veteran players, and minimum salary levels for all players 4. The conditions under which players can become free agents and the rights of those who are free agents 5. A salary cap that sets the maximum player payroll for teams and a formula determining the fines that an owner must pay if the team's payroll exceeds the cap 6. A total team salary floor that sets the minimum payroll for each team in a league 7. The conditions under which players or teams can request an outside arbitrator to determine the fairness of an existing or proposed contract 8. Changes in the rules of the game

monopoly

A market in which there are many buyers but only one seller. The one and only provider of a particular product or service.

Active Participation in Sports

A positive link exists only for those who are already strongly committed to participation in a sport

New Media Consumption

Although people often access online sport content to complement con- tent they consume in traditional media, there is a growing number of others who use new media to replace traditional content. This shift in consumption patterns concerns peo- ple in media companies that broadcast live sports worldwide, because their revenues in the past have depended on controlling this content and maintain- ing large audiences to sell to advertisers.

Ethnicity and Nationality in a Global Context

Although some sports reporters and broadcasters are careful to avoid using ethnic and national stereotypes in their representations of athletes and teams, evidence suggests that subtle stereotypes regularly influence sports coverage.

Media Depend on Sports

Apart from newspapers and magazines devoted to specific sports, the print media do not depend on sports; nor do films, radio, and the video game industry as a whole.

Sport Journalists on the Job: Relationships with Athletes

As the amount of video coverage of sports has increased, sportswriters have had to create stories that go beyond describing action and reporting scores. This leads them to seek increasingly intimate information about the personal lives of athletes, and this creates tension in athlete-journalist relationships.

New Media Production

At the same time that corporations try to maximize control over online representations of sports, YouTube and other sites provide people opportunities to upload their own information and interpretation of sports as well as representations of sports events and performances.

Corporations Use Sports as Vehicles for Global Expansion

Because certain sports capture the attention, emotions, and allegiance of so many people worldwide, corporations are eager to sponsor them. Corporations need symbols of success and productivity that they can use as "marketing hooks" for products and as representations of their images.

COMMERCIALIZATION AND CHANGES IN SPORTS

Changes may occur in the: - Structure and goals of sports - Orientations of athletes, coaches, and sponsors - Organizations that sponsor and control sports When a sport is converted into commercial entertainment, its success depends solely on spec- tator appeal.

Sport Organizations Look for Global Markets

Commercial sport organizations are businesses, and their goal is to expand into as many markets as possible. In fact, future profits for major professional sports depend on selling media rights and consumer merchandise.

Orientations of Athletes, Coaches, and Sponsors

Commercial sports occur within a promotional cul- ture created to sell athletic performances to audi- ences and sell audiences to sponsors. These sports are promoted through marketing hype based on stories, myths, and images created around players, teams, and even stadiums or arenas. Athletes become entertainers.

"Why do so many people give priority to sports over other activities in their quest for excitement?"

Cultural theorists suggest that answers can be found by looking at the connection between ide- ology and cultural practices. This leads us to con- sider the following factors.

Sport Journalists Are Not All the Same

Entertainment is a focus for nearly everyone work- ing in commercial media.

EMERGENCE AND GROWTH OF COMMERCIAL SPORTS

First, they are most prevalent in market econo- mies where material rewards are highly valued by athletes, team owners, event sponsors, and spectators. Second, they usually exist in societies that have large, densely populated cities with high concen- trations of potential spectators. Although some forms of commercial sports can be maintained in rural, agricultural societies, their revenues would not support full-time professional athletes or sport promoters. Third, commercial sports are a luxury, and they prosper only when the standard of living is high enough that people have time and resources to play and watch events that have no tangible products required for survival. Transportation and communi- cations technologies must exist for sponsors to make money. Therefore, commercial sports are common in wealthy, urban, and industrial or post-industrial societies; they seldom exist in labor-intensive, poor societies where people must use all their resources to survive. Fourth, commercial sports require large amounts of capital (money or credit) to build and maintain stadiums and arenas in which events can be played and watched. Capital can be accumulated in the public or private sector, but in either case, the will- ingness to invest in sports depends on anticipated payoffs in the form of publicity, profits, or power. Fifth, commercial sports flourish in cultures where lifestyles emphasize consumption and mate- rial status symbols. This enables everything associ- ated with sports to be marketed and sold: athletes (including their names, autographs, and images), merchandise, team names, and logos. When people express their identities through clothing, other pos- sessions, and their associations with status symbols and celebrities, they will spend money on sports that have meaning in their social world. The suc- cess of commercial sports depends on selling sym- bols and emotional experiences to audiences, and then selling audiences to sponsors and the media.

Sports and the Media: A Relationship Based on Economics and Ideology

Global economic factors have intensified the interde- pendence between commercial sports and the media. Major transnational corporations need ways to develop global name recognition, cultural legitimacy, and product familiarity. They also want to promote ideologies that support a way of life based on con- sumption, competition, and individual achievement. Finally, many male executives of large media corporations are dedicated sports fans, and they like to be associated with sports as sponsors. Masculine culture is deeply embedded in most of the corpora- tions they control,

Power and Control in Sports Media

In nations where mass media are privately owned, the dominant goals are to make profits and to dis- tribute content that promotes the ideas and beliefs of people in positions of power and influence.

Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality Themes in Media Representations of Sports

Just as gender ideology influences media coverage, so do racial and ethnic ideology and the stereotypes associated with it.

monopsony

Market with only one buyer. A single buyer of a product or service.

Gender Themes in Media Representations of Sports

Masculinity rules in media sports

Attendance at Sport Events

Media consumption of sports is positively linked with attendance at elite events, but it may decrease attendance at less elite events—research is needed.

Success Themes in Media Narratives

Media coverage of sports in the United States emphasizes success through individual effort, self-control, competition, teamwork, aggression, adherence to rules, and effective game plans.

Media Coverage and Spectator Interest

Media promote the commercialization of sports by publicizing and covering events in ways that sustain spectator interest

EXPERIENCES AND CONSEQUENCES OF CONSUMING MEDIA SPORTS

Media sports provide topics of conversation, occa- sions for social interaction, a sense of belonging and identity, opportunities to express emotions, and an exciting distraction for those who are passing time alone. However, few studies have investigated audi- ence experiences to see how people give meaning to media sports coverage and integrate it into their lives. Similarly, we know that media images and narratives influence what people feel, think, and do, but few studies have investigated the consequences of media sport consumption at the individual or col- lective level.

Are Commercial Sports Controlled by the Media?

Most commercial sports depend on television and online coverage for revenues and publicity.

The Owners of Sport Teams

Most of the individuals or companies that own minor-league teams in North America don't make much money.

Media Representations of Sports

Most people don't think critically about media con- tent (Bruce, 2013). For example, when we watch sports on television, we don't often notice that the images and commentary we see and hear have been carefully presented to create engaging narra- tives, heighten the dramatic content of the event, and emphasize prevailing ideologies in American society, especially those that reaffirm the inter- ests of sponsors as well as the media companies.

New Media and Sports

New media, including all digital and social media, radically alter relationships in the production and consumption of accessible content related to sports worldwide. They make possible individually cre- ated and selected information, interpretation, and entertainment.

Newspapers

Newspapers at the beginning of the twentieth century had a sports page, which consisted of a few notices about upcoming activities, a short story or two about races or college games, and pos- sibly some scores of local games. Today, there are daily and weekly newspapers devoted exclusively to sports, and nearly all daily newspapers have sports sections often making up about 25 percent of their news content.

Sports Depend on Media

People played sports long before media coverage of their events. When sports exist for participants only, there's no need to advertise games, report the action, publish results, and interpret what hap- pened.

THE ORGANIZATION OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS IN NORTH AMERICA

Professional sports in North America are privately owned by individuals, partnerships, or corpora- tions.

Consequences of Consuming Media Sports

Research on the consequences of consuming media sports has focused on a wide variety of issues. Here we'll focus on three: active participation in sports, attendance at sport events, and betting on sport events.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEDIA

Revolutionary changes are occurring in the media. The media landscape is changing rapidly and dra- matically.

THE ORGANIZATION OF AMATEUR SPORTS IN NORTH AMERICA

So-called amateur sports don't have owners, but they do have commercial sponsors and governing bodies that control events and athletes.

Class Ideology and Spectator Interest

Spectator interest in sports is highest among those who believe in a meritocratic ideal: the idea that success is always based on skill and hard work, and skill and hard work always lead to success. This belief supports a widely held class ideology in societ- ies with capitalist economies.

Youth Sport Programs and Spectator Interest

Spectator interest often is initiated during child- hood sport experiences.

SPORT JOURNALISM

Some people trivialize sport journalism by saying that it provides information about people and events that is entertaining but unrelated to important issues in everyday life. Sports are not merely reflections of social worlds; they also are constitutive of those worlds— that is, they're sites at which social worlds are produced, reproduced, and changed.

Ideological Themes in Media Images and Narratives

Sports are represented in the media through images and narratives that are selected from a vast array of possibilities.

Class Relations and Commercial Sports

Sports most likely to be commercialized are those watched, played, or used for profit by people who control economic resources in society.

Audience Experiences

Studies of audience experiences suggest that people interpret media content and integrate media sport consumption into their lives in diverse ways. More men than women are strongly committed to con- suming media sports, and strongly committed con- sumers constitute a relatively small segment of the overall population in most societies, including the United States and Canada

The Creation of Spectator Interest

The Quest for Excitement When social life is highly controlled and organized, everyday rou- tines often cause people to feel emotionally con- strained. This fosters a search for activities that offer tension-excitement and emotional arousal.

Team Owners and Public Assistance

The belief that cities cannot have "major league status" unless they have professional sports teams and sports megaevents has enabled sports team owners and promoters to receive public money

Consumption Themes in Media Representations of Sports

The emphasis on consumption is clear in most media coverage of sports. Commercials are so central in the telecast of the Super Bowl that the media audience is polled to rate them. Audiences for media sports are encour- aged to express their connections to teams and ath- letes by purchasing thousands of branded objects.

To understand how this affects sports, we will consider the impact of commercialization on the following three aspects of sports:

The internal structure and goals of sports The orientations of athletes, coaches, and sponsors The people and organizations that control sports

Professional Athletes

The legal status of athletes has always been the most controversial issue in professional team sports.

Legal Status: Individual Sports

The legal status of professional athletes in individual sports varies greatly from sport to sport and even from one athlete to another. The legal status of athletes in individual sports largely depends on what athletes must do to train and qualify for competitions. For example, few athletes can afford to pay for all the training needed to develop professional-level skills in a sport.

Team Owners and Sport Leagues as Cartels

The tendency to think alike has been especially strong among the owners of teams in the major North American sport leagues.

Legal Status: Team Sports

Until the mid-1970s, professional athletes in the major sport leagues had little or no legal power to control their careers. They could play only for the team that drafted and owned them. They could not control when and to whom they might be traded during their careers, even when their contracts expired. Furthermore, they were obliged to sign standard contracts saying that they agreed to forfeit to their owners all rights over their careers. Basically, they were bought and sold like property and seldom consulted about their wishes. They were at the mercy of team owners, managers, and coaches.

Media Production and Representation of Sports

When media are privately owned and organized to make financial profits, sports are selected for coverage on the basis of their entertainment and revenue-generating potential. Sports coverage generally consists of images and narratives that exaggerate the spectacular, such as heroic injuries or achievements.

Outposts in Action: Branding Sports

When ranchers want to show ownership of animals, they burn their logos into the animals' hides. The brand is their mark of ownership.

LEGAL STATUS AND INCOMES OF ATHLETES IN COMMERCIAL SPORTS

When sports are commercialized, athletes are entertainers. Professional athletes are paid for their efforts, whereas amateur athletes receive rewards within limits set by the organizations that govern their lives. This raises these two questions: 1. What is the legal status of the athlete- entertainers in sports? 2. How are athlete-entertainers rewarded for their work?

The People and Organizations That Control Sports

When sports depend on the revenues they generate, control in sport organizations shifts away from the athletes and toward those with the resources to produce and promote sports. The organizations that control commercial sports are designed to maximize profits.

strike

a work stoppage in which employees refuse to work until a labor dispute is resolved

A cartel

a centralized group that coordinates the actions of a selected collection of people or busi- nesses.

lockout

a company tool to fight union demands by refusing to allow employees to enter its facilities to work. an employer-imposed work stoppage

Fantasy Sports

a type of online game where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete based on the statistical performance of those players' players in actual games. To attract fans to their web sites, professional sport organizations, media outlets, and entrepreneurs offer online simulations that allow fans to build their own sport teams and compete against other fans' sport teams. Consuming sports through the media is a passive activity.

online interactivity enables people to

bypass the gatekeepers of content in the "old" media—that is, journalists, editors, and commentators—as they construct their own inter- pretations of events, athletes, and the overall orga- nization of sports

In all sports, this form of employee restriction was called the reserve system

because it was a set of practices that enabled team owners to reserve the labor of athletes for themselves and control the movement of athletes from team to team in their sport.

The Limits of Corporate Branding

com-mercial sports are a site where people with political and financial resources can package their values and present them in a form that most people see as normal, acceptable, and even entertaining.

Independent researchers explain that

hat positive effects are bound to occur when a city spends $500 million to a billion dollars of public money on a project. However, they also point out that the pub- lic good might be better served if tax money were spent on things other than a stadium.

Gambling on sports

is mostly a U.S. problems because other societies have well-accepted norms that discourage wagering on all human activities. Consuming media sports is clearly connected with gambling, but there is no evidence that it causes gambling. Dates back to horse and dog tracks. In Nevada and Delaware people can legally bet on sports outcomes.

Print media

newspapers, magazines, fanzines, books, catalogues, event programs, and even trading cards

public investment

occurs when political leaders believe that commercial sports serve their interests, the interests of "the pub- lic," or a combination of both.

Nonsport issues—

that is, calling attention to a woman athlete's personality, personal appear- ance, and personal or family life in a way that makes her athlete identity seem secondary to these important "female matters."

Appropriate femininity—

that is, highlighting personal characteristics that distinguish women from men in terms of stature, strength, power, speed, emotional control, and vulnerability.

Compulsory heterosexuality—

that is, mention- ing that women athletes are "normal" because they have a boyfriend, husband, or child, and ignoring the reality that some women athletes are lesbians and that sexuality has nothing to do with athletic ability.

Gender marking—

that is, referring to men's events as the events and to women's events aswomen's events.

Infantilization—

that is, referring to women athletes as girls and calling them by their first names in a way that reduces them to a status subordinate to men, who are referred to by last names and never called boys.

Sexualization—

that is, representing women athletes with images that highlight physical attractiveness to the exclusion of sport-related physical attributes, and giving special attention to women athletes who have "redeemed their femininity" by posing for such representations in videos or photo shoots.

Ambivalence—

that is, using narratives that recognize and praise sporting skills but also include comments that trivialize or undermine a woman's identity and prowess as a serious athlete.

Additional reasons for increased rights fees include the following:

∙ The deregulation of the television industry ∙ A growing demand to watch certain spectator sports ∙ Increased connectivity with satellite and cable worldwide ∙ Sponsors willing to pay top prices for access to live sport audiences because commercials are seen by people rather than being skipped over in recorded programs ∙ The growth of ESPN and other cable channels that collect money from cable and satellite companies as well as commercial sponsors, which gives them two sources of income

To accommodate the interests of media companies, commercial television has required numerous changes in scheduling and rules to make sports more "telegenic." Some of these changes include the following:

∙ The schedules and starting times for many sport events have been altered to fit television's pro- gramming needs. ∙ Halftime periods in certain sports have been shortened to keep television viewers tuned to events. ∙ Prearranged schedules of time-outs have been added to games and matches to make time for as many commercials as possible. ∙ Teams, leagues, and tournaments have been formed or realigned to take advantage of regional media markets and build national and international fan support for sports, leagues, and teams.