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Reading 3.2 Toby Miller,GeoffreyLawrence, Jim McKay and David Rowe, ‘ Sports media sans frontières’

God wore number 23. ( De Morgen,Belgium) The ‘ Michelangelo’ of sportshoes will not return. ( Faz,Germany) His royalAirness will never fly again. ( Telegraaf,The Netherlands) God is going home. ( Yedioth Ahrnonoth,Israel) [B]asketball is alone. ( La Repubblica,Italy) The King is Leaving. ( Sport,Spain) Earthquake. ( El Mundo Deportivo,Spain) Amyththat has gone beyond sports. ( El Periodico,Spain) Tell us it is not true. ( El Pais,Spain) [H]e’ sthe greatest.(Herald Sun,Australia) King MikeAbdicates. ( Age,Australia) God will never fly again. ( Asahi Shimbun,Japan) God finally to retire. ( Tochu Sports,Jordan) [His] nameisengraved on theheartofeveryone. ( Beijing Morning Post,China) Año Uno D. De J. [Year One After Jordan]. ( Ole,Argentina) (quoted in ‘ The World Bids’ ,1999)

Theseresponses to Michael Jordan’ sretirement testify to three things – his exceptional athletic ability, thesuccess of Nikeworldwide, and the spread of theNBA acrossTVscreens: Rafaga NBA in Mexico, La Magia de la NBA in Argentina, Give Me Five in Belgium, NBAMania in Japan, NBAJam in Taiwan, and Zou Jin in thePRC (Andrews, 1999: 508).Just as Nikeand theNBA built their strategies forgrowtharound Jordan, so his career can only be understood in terms of thoseinstitutions. While this is perhaps themost spectacular instance of themedia– sports link, TV in particular is inseparable fromglobal sport, as bothamarker of globalization and one of its prime movers. IOC official historymarksthe Olympics in terms of broadcast revenues – atotal of US$1.25 billion forthe 2000 and 2002Games – and their status as ‘ asocial, even sociological event, whichmore or less reflects thestate of theworld’ (Macleod, 1996: 23; Verdier,1996: 34). This sense of sportstanding formore than itself, always bothrepresenting and beingrepresented, has apre-commercial heritage. In its nascent medievalform, and as it maturedinthe momentofearly modernity, sportwas above all alocal cultural pursuit, linked first to the ‘ rough play’ of mainly young men in thefestival seasons and later through more formal, regular contests between settlements in particular regions (Elias, 1986).While never disappearing entirely,local sporthas progressivelygiven way to regulatedprofessional competitions organized on national and international lines. The forces that, above Week 3Sport, media and culture: who’ scalling the shots? 95

all others, havetransported sportfrom local pitches to theglobal stage are themass (and especiallyelectronic)media (Cunningham and Miller, 1994; Rowe,1996). If aprofessionally-based economyofsport wasfirst established by theenclosure of sports grounds and charging forattendance at matches againstvisiting teams, then thecapacity to carry sports action, advertising, and promotional messages enabled that economytotakeonfirst anational and then an inter-and transnational character,asthe game wastransformed from apractice to aspectacle (Bourdieu, 1999: 16). In this chapter we examine howcontemporarysportarticulates with advertising, promotion, and commodification as it connects, disconnects, and reconnects collectiveexperiencesofspaceand time within and between nation-states. We are concerned withhow local, regional, and national cultures are projected by thesports media into thedomain of theglobal and, in turn, howthe reception of globally mediatedsportaffects those levels of culture. We have selectedfive sporting cases – blackathleticprotest, British (especially English) soccer,Canadian ice hockey, Australian rugbyleague, and women’ s tennis – to demonstrate howcertain contemporarysports seek to accommodate, mediate, or resist globalizing pressures accordingto their specific histories and geographies,institutional frameworks,and structures of culture. Eachsite shows theinfluenceoftelevision and enduring and shifting patterns of identification.

Mediated sports cultures Sports reporting in theprint and electronic media is deeply reliant on imagingthe body.Still photography provides asense of ‘ having-been- there’ (Barthes,1977), often through minute attention to thebodies of athletes.Photographic presentations of sporting bodies are largely limited to rigorous motion (during competition)and inertia (for example, at amedalceremony). The latter image carries most efficiently theidea of thenation. For manyspectators, themedal ceremonyatmajor international events likethe summer Olympic Games epitomizes national identification and affect. Suchrituals are tableauxofbodily dispositions. The athletes,their bodies draped in the colours and insignia of nationand corporation, are led to theceremony by afunctionary.The different heights of theblocks on whichthey stand spatially signify hierarchy.They bend to receivetheir medals as in amilitary service, then turntheir gaze to their national flags, also hierarchically arranged,while thenational anthem of thewinning athlete/team reinforces visual supremacywithaural presence. Apart from flags fluttering in thebreeze, themomentisstill. At this point, athletes frequently cry – movedperhaps by asense of individual and, heavilyimputed by television and radio commentary, national 96 D170 This sporting planet

achievement and responsibility.The statelynature of theceremony demands that spectators and viewersbeserious. It is not unusual for patriotic viewersathometostand fortheir national anthem, disciplined, as Foucault (1977) argues,most effectively not by external repression but through externally induced and internally accepted discourses of thesocial self.Iftears well up in their eyes, this discourse of nationhas become powerful enough to produce involuntary physiological responses in those subject to it. National mythologies prosper when internal fissures – class, gender, race, ethnicity,locality,age, sexuality,and so on – aresubmerged.The risk of displaying differences and divisions to aglobal audience, rather than asserting theexistence of aunified nation, makes themedal ceremonyand other less formal aspects of major sporting events subject to strict official control over communication in all its forms – verbal and non-verbal, abstract, and corporeal. Athletes are pressured by national sports committees and media organizations (especially those who havepaid forprivileged access to them) not to be controversial about issues ‘ backhome ’ – to preserve theillusion of the unitednation forthe duration of theevent. The IOC, state-licensed and -funded national sports bodies, and thesports market’ slucrative sponsorship and endorsementcontracts, are decisiveindisciplining athletes.The sporting body’ smarketability is significantly,but not exclusively,influenced by its degree of political quiescence.Race, gender,and sexuality also haveasubstantial impact on its place in the international cultural economyofsport. We shallexamine nowthe vast and complex infrastructure that is hidden behind these sports tableauxofwinners and losers. Modernsportand themedia developed simultaneously and symbiotically, supplying each other withthe necessaryresources for development: capital, audiences, promotion, and content.The sports media emerged out of aneed,first, forthe reporting of sports information through theprint media and, later,through presentation of sports events via theelectronic media (Rowe, 1992a,1992b; Rowe and Stevenson, 1995).InBritain and Australia, print sports journalism developed from notices about thetimeand place of forthcoming local sports events,matchdescriptions, results, and, rather quaintly,the hospitality (usually by ‘ theladies’ )afforded to visiting players (Brown, 1996). As sportbecame increasingly professional andcommodified, it did not disappear from thelocal print media, but became secondary – even in provincial newspapers – to national and international sport (Rowe,1999). This progressivedetachment of sportand place wasfirst supplemented and then acceleratedbyradio andtelevision. National public broadcasting organizations likethe British Broadcasting Week 3Sport, media and culture: who’ scalling the shots? 97

Corporation (BBC),the Australian Broadcasting Commission (later renamed aCorporation) and theCBC usedsuchmajor sporting occasions as theFACup Final, theMelbourne Cup horse race, and the Stanley Cup play-offs, to develop outside-broadcasttechniques and to engage in state-sanctionedprocessesofnation-building (Gruneau and Whitson,1993; Hargreaves, 1986; Haynes, 1999; Whannel, 1992). Once thenationcould be reached through thepublic and commercial sports media (Wilson, 1998), its boundaries could be exceededasthose media carried thenationtodistant and dispersed sports events, further building asense of national identity by encouraging readers, listeners, and viewers to supporttheir national representatives in international sporting competitions. There has been adramaticshiftinthe nature of world television over thepast decades. It has been transformedfrom acomparatively scarce resource to acommonone in most parts of theworld, moving from a predominantly nation-based and state-run medium towards internationalism and privatization. The global fashion for neoliberalism has:(a) cut down cross-ownership regulations (encouraging capitalists to invest in variousmedia); (b)reduced public- sector budgets (drawing labour,product development, and technologicalinitiativetoprofit-centred services); (c) opened up terrestrial TV to international capital (undercutting local production); and (d) attackedthe idea of public broadcasting as élitist (blurring distinctions between education and entertainment) and inefficient (crowdingout investment in theprivate sector). Sporthas been crucial to these recent developments. As theidea of a universal service that provides broad coverage of news and dramais displaced by all-entertainment networks, sportturns into acheap source of hours and hoursofTVtime. At thetruly expensive, top end of TV sport, it offers amethod of enticing viewers to makethe massive monetaryand technological shifttodigitaltelevision (thereby rendering consumers’ personal archives obsolete and making them guinea-pigs in thesearchfor economies of scale) by showing favoured sports only on digital systems. France ’ sCanal+ estimates that 40% of its subscribers paytheir monthly fees purely to watchsoccer (Williams, 1998: M3; Williams 1999: 104). In 1999, therights to coverEuropean soccer on television cost over US$2 billion as partofthis enticement (Croci and Ammirante, 1999: 500). The IOC (n. d.) proclaims television as ‘ theengine that has driven the growth of theOlympic movement’ .Just as shifts in capitalismare associated withnew technology (earlynineteenth-century national capitalism and steam, late nineteenth-centuryimperialism and 98 D170 This sporting planet

electricity,twentieth-century multinational capital and electronics: Jameson, 1996: 3) so we might write ahistoryofsportconnected to technology – wire reports and theradio describing play acrossthe world from themid-twentiethcenturyand television spreading cricket, soccer,and theOlympics since the1960s, communicating ideologies of nationalism and thecommodity.AtSydney 2000, not only wasthe internet popular, but TV placed moving images of Olympic winners from secondsbefore into commercials. The satelliteand digital era promises to erase andrewrite relations of time and space in sportonce more. This latter-day profit-making targets audiences defined and developed as partofnation-buildingbypublic services. From theBBC’ sbeginnings in the1920s, its distinctively public mission has been to unite thenation through livecoverage of sport. Quality controlinearlyradio times even included avisually disabled person alongside thecommentators who could vouchfor thevividness of description (Crook, 1998: 85– 86). At thesame time,the BBC’ spayment of £1,500 to telecast the1948 London Olympics set in train an entirely new relationship between sportand theaudiovisual media; aprecedent that has growntoconsume theresources of its originator ( ‘ Sportand Television’ ,1996). Half acenturylater,the BBC’ s1998 decisionto commit vast resources to digitalization caused it to lose therightsto coverEnglishinternational cricket, leading to Cabinet discussion and public protest. The choice between technological upgrading and a traditional partofthe national service was painful. In earlier times, it would not have been achoice – both innovation and national service would havebeen funded from tax revenue. Sporthas long been at theleading edge of TV and technology.When theCommunications Satellite Corporation broadcast the1964 Olympics,anew era began (Kang, 1988) – theverynameembracing the technologicaland thecommercial as inseparable technical and social relations. Expansionhas continued apace. The numberofTVhours watched globally tripled between 1979 and 1991,while more than half the30billion people who watched the1990 men’ sWorld Cup did so from Asia, never afootball power. The 32 billion viewers of the1994 event spanned 188nations, and the1996 Olympic Games drew 35 billion. The third most significant event is theCommonwealthGames, whichdraws 500 million viewers. US audiences forNBC’ sAtlanta Olympics coverage were offered more advertisingtimethan game time, while Hollywood factorsinaquadrennial overseas box-office disaster during theweekswhenpeople stay away fromthe cinema and watch themen’ sWorld Cup. And themoveinto TV timeismassive. The NBA is nowseen on television in 206 countries across 128networks and 42 languages, and has its owncable and satellite network ready fordigital Week 3Sport, media and culture: who’ scalling the shots? 99

interactivity – NBA.com TV.Its start-upoperation, theWomen’ s National Basketball Association (WNBA), was broadcast in 17 languages across 125nations in 1999, its third season of existence. In baseball, MLB is seen in 215countries. The 1999– 2000 NFL season wastelecastin 24 languages to 182countries. Fans in Austria, theNetherlands, and Singapore, where no US football games arebroadcast on Sundays,were offered webcastsfromthat season via broad-band. The NHL is also seen aroundthe world, and has websites in France, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Slovakia, Russia, theUK, theCzechRepublic, and Poland (Herman and McChesney,1997: 39; Smith, 1997:114;FIFA, n. d.; Muda, 1998: 223; McAllister,1997; Pickard, 1997;Wise, 1999; Burton,1999; ‘ New Television Deals’ ,1999; ‘ International Broadcasters’ , 1999; ‘ NFL Full ’ ,1999; Dempsey,1999a,1999b; ‘ Country-by-Country ’ , 1999). By contrast,Australian Rules Football’ sinternational circulation is mostlyonhighlights shows that are given away to networks ( ‘ TV Times’ ,1999). No wonder that RupertMurdochreferstoTVsportasNews Corporation’ s ‘ battering ram’ into new markets, while telecommunications corporation TCI calls it ‘ theuniversal glue for global content ’ (quoted in Herman andMcChesney, 1997:75 – 76). But theenergies of theNew Zealand/Aotearoa rugby team are also at play here. National and regional identifications bring into question the ‘ benefits’ of newtechnology and global capital. Even neoclassical economists haveargued againstsatellite exclusivity,onthe ground that ‘ keysporting events, likethe Olympics, theWorld Cupand theFACup ... generate positivesocial network externalities’ whenthey are universally available. Folks talk to oneanother about theshared experience of viewing, whichinturnbinds them socially,and this ‘ social capital’ may be lost if only aprivileged fewreceived transmission of suchevents (Boardman and Hargreaves-Heap, 1999: 168, 178). The statehas been bombardedbycomplaints about thetakeoverof sportbyprivate networks.Citizensregard national sportasapublic good (or at least one forwhichthey only pay profit-making entities indirectly). In Germany, forexample, it is likely that parts of thenext twoWorld Cups of soccer will only be available locally on payTV, after theEuropean Broadcasting Union, aconsortium of public networks, wasoutbid by Kirchand Sporis in 1996, despite offering US$1.8 billion (Hils, 1997; ‘ Sportand Television’ ,1996; Boehm, 1998a). When theplan materialized in Germany, there was immediate uproar,withpoliticians proclaiming free viewing of national-teamgames as ‘ abasic right of our citizens’ (quoted in Hils,1997). And when Vittorio Cecchi Gorioutbid theItalian public broadcaster RAI forsoccer rights in 1996, theItalian 100 D170 This sporting planet

state movedintodeclare theauctioncontrary to thepublic interest, legislating to preclude anyone holdingmore than 60% of the nation ’ srights to televisesoccer (Tagliabue, 1997:D4; ‘ Flirtation and Frustration’ ,1999). Similar legislation wasintroduced in theUKand France, although cricketauthorities persuaded theBlair government that ‘ their’ sportdid not belongonthe ‘ A ’ list in 1998 (Boehm, 1998a; Boyle and Haynes, 2000: 216). But then Telepiu boughtexclusivepay rights forthe four leading soccer clubs in Italy,forcing audiences to makethe digitalmove and making it harderfor competitors to gain custom. When Murdochannounced asecond digital platforminItaly for1999 via partnerships withlocal football clubs, Mediaset, and Telecom Italia, he was also preparing aUS$2.5 billion offer forsix years ’ exclusivecoverage of Serie Aand Bfootball, countering pay-per-view arrangements between Canal+,its Italian subsidiaryTelepiu, and top clubs. Then he purchased aquarter of Kirch, staking out its non- broadcast rights (Williams, 1998: M3; Zecchinelli, 1998; ‘ Flirtation and Frustration’ ,1999; Boehm,1999; Boyle and Haynes, 2000: 210). The criterion of national interest wasbeingcircumvented. The Olympic Charter,whichguarantees ‘ maximumpresentation of the Games to thewidest possible global audience free-of-charge’ (IOC, n. d.) may eventually be interpreted to mean that theThird World will receive analogue signals and theFirst World digital. Watchingthe Olympics on television is meant to be asimilar experience forall,ashostbroadcasters produce thevisual text (except forthe US, which has its ownfeed, camera angles, and commentaryposition). Countries then reterritorialize thetext withtheir ownverbal track(Pujik, 1999: 117, 119). Exhaustivestudies of theGames as ‘ acommunication phenomenon ... initially produced in acity,but then “ reproduced” in multipleplaces’ , suggest that locally modulated coverage constructs very different texts and generates very different responses. Local cultural policy regulatedby thestate also plays apart, notablythe insistence by Arabic countries that women’ sevents not be broadcast and that they hence payonapro rata basis (de Moragas Spa et al., 1995: xvi, 22). Disney/ABC ’ ssubsidiaryESPN has been atrendsetter in the televisualization of sport. ESPN International, whichbegan in 1983, telecasts in 21 languages to 182nations and 155million households. It has 20 networks across Asia, Australia, and Latin America (the latter has four networks of its own) in addition to syndication deals. Asingle executivesenttoHongKongtocover Asia in 1993 is nowone of 300 employees based in Singapore at amajor productionfacility (Fry, 1998b: A4; Sandomir,1999). In 1998, ESPN struck aprogramming arrangement withthe Argentinian militarytobroadcast in the Antarctic, whichhad longbeen atarget in order forthe company Week 3Sport, media and culture: who’ scalling the shots? 101

to claim atruly global reach(Fry, 1998a:Al; Fry, 1998b: A4). That reach permits Disney to address asocial sector that has conventionally eluded it – middle-class men – and even to penetrate public TV:the PRC’ s sports network draws half its contentfromESPN. The company ’ s sloganis ‘ Thinkglobally,but customize locally. ’ That means adegree of local coverage, suchastable tennis in East Asia and cricketinIndia, while Latin American services produce 20% of their programmes (Grove,1998: A6). But from 1996, ESPN offered ‘ global buys’ to advertisers – theglobal commodity sign could be attached to thelocal sports referent (Herman and McChesney,1997: 83, 63). The network uses Princeton VideoImagingtoedit computer-generated visuals advertisinggoods and services onto real-life stadia, streets, and public space,making it appear as though purely televisual billboards are presentatthe site of liveaction (Williams, 1998). As awonderfully doublespeaking ESPN executiveputs it, ‘ When we say ‘ local’ we don’ t mean that it has to be from that locality,itcan be programmingfrom half-way around theworld’ (quoted in Grove,1998: A6). Canal+ describes ESPN as ‘ one of theleadingentertainment companies and brandsinthe ‘“global information society”’ (Lescure, 1998). Given thecrucial role that multinational media-entertainment companies nowplayinmarketingall sports, it is not accidental that a recent NHL expansion franchiseinAnaheim wasawarded to the Disney Corporation, which also owns theABC network, MLB’ s Anaheim Angels, 80% of ESPN, and partial rights to telecast NFL games foreightyears. It is not surprising, then,that the ‘ Official City of Anaheim WebSite ’ lists Disneyland alongside theMighty Ducks in projecting its civic profile. Wayne Huizinga, theowner of Blockbuster Video(whichsubsequently merged withViacom) boughtanother new franchiseinMiami via theFlorida Panthers Holdings company. The Atlanta Thrashers, theNHL’ smost recent expansion team, belong to thelargest media corporation in theworld, AOL-Time Warner,which also owns NBA and MLB teams in Atlanta, TNT Sports, theGoodwill Games, World Championship Wrestling, theCNN/SI sports network, Time ,and Sports Illustrated,and is theNBA’ scablepartner.

Reading source Miller, Lawrence, McKay and Rowe, 2001, pp.60 – 71

Comment n The Michael Jordan example bringstogether three aspectsofthe sport – media relationship: 1athletic excellence (individual star); 2sponsored by Nike(commerce); 3NBA on television (media).