Introduction to Media Relations in Sport

1 Introduction to Media Relations in Sport he late Texas “Tex” Schramm (1920–2003) earned his football reputation as the general manager who helped build the Dallas Cowboys into “America’s Team” Tduring the 1960s and ’70s. But he started in football in 1947 as director of publicity for the Los Angeles Rams. During that time Schramm said he practically had to beg local newspapers to cover the team. “Papers didn’t staff our training camp,” he said. “I wrote stories for the papers and the papers would put some other writer’s by-line on the story. Not only that, I wrote the headline and helped ship the copy to the compos- ing room” (“Tint of,” 1994). Schramm later made the somewhat infamous comment about free agency in the National Football League (NFL), saying it would never happen because “you guys (the players) are cattle, and we’re (owners) the ranchers. And ranchers can always get more cattle” (Farmer & Johnson, 2008). Times have certainly changed. Most certainly for the NFL, whose players now have a measure of free agency. But for our purposes, the changes in sports media have been just as great. Certainly the days of the NFL having to beg for media attention have long since passed; the media have helped turn the league into perhaps the most dominant and iconic sports organization in American history. And Schramm’s comment about cattle and ranchers may have been aimed at NFL players and owners, but it has an important corollary for sports media. The sports media used to be the ranchers—controlling production and distribution of content; deciding the what, when, and where of audience consumption. But that system, just like Schramm’s vision of free agency, is long gone. In its place has risen a new model fueled by new technology and defined by interactivity, audience fragmentation and empowerment, and instantaneous access. The evolution marks an important transi- tion for what we call media relations in sport. Sports media have evolved from a fairly closed, one-way communication system based on distribution of content to mass audiences (see Figure 1.1) to a much more open and interactive system aimed at intercon- nected niche audiences who can now also create and distribute their own content (see Figure 1.2). 2 Chapter One Sports Content Distribution Athletes Mass Mass Organizations Sports Media Events/Games Audience News Publicity Feedback Figure 1.1. Historic model of sports-media-audience communication, 1850s–1980s. Niche Sports Media Distribution Sports Content Athletes Mass Organizations Media Events/Games News Publicity Feedback, Distribution, Content, Interaction Niche Sports Publicity Audience Image, Message Control Figure 1.2. Modern model of sports-media-audience communication, 1990s–present. THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPORTS COMMUNICATION MODEL To fully understand the change requires a closer look at how we define media relations in sport. As the phrase would suggest, there are three key components—media, sport, and communication (relations). All of these parts of the sports communication process have evolved drastically over the years. The Old Model (1850s–1980s) There is no precise time to date the emergence of mass media coverage of sports in the US. According to Enriquez (2002), one of the earliest known sports stories was a de- scription of a prize fight that appeared in a Boston newspaper in 1733. Media coverage of sports was fairly sporadic until the middle of the 19th century. Sowell (2008) argues that the birth of national sports coverage began in 1849 when the telegraph was first used to help cover a championship boxing match, and partly for that reason we’ll use 1850 as the starting point for the model. By that time the forces that helped create the mass audiences needed for mediated sports coverage—industrialization, urbanization, and the growth of education—were already under way. The media during this time were characterized by the traditional mass media that still exist today: first newspapers and magazines, followed by radio and then television. Introduction to Media Relations in Sport 3 These outlets had exclusive access to the athletes, games, events, and news related to sport. They would take this content and distribute to large mass audiences through their distinct media. In return, the athletes and events received the important publicity they needed for economic growth and survival. Even as far back as 1950, long-time baseball manager Connie Mack (1950) observed, “How did baseball develop from the sandlots to the huge stadiums? From a few hundred spectators to the millions in attendance today? My answer is: through the gigantic force of publicity. The professional sporting world was created and is being kept alive by the services extended the press.” That publicity made both sports and the media unbelievably rich. As the media helped the sports become more popular, the rights to distribute the content became more valuable, and the fees sports and leagues charged to distribute their product sky- rocketed. For example, in 1960 CBS paid $394,000 for the rights to televise the Sum- mer Olympic Games in Rome. In 2012, the same rights will cost NBC $1.18 billion (Martzke, 2003). In 1962, the NFL sold the rights to televise its games to CBS for $4.65 million. The league’s current contract is worth $17.6 billion, paid over eight years by CBS, FOX, NBC, and ESPN (Andreff & Staudohar, 2000). Television rights fees for the NFL have increased 10,000% since 1970, which reflects the tremendous audience interest in NFL programming. The 30 seconds of commercial time in the Super Bowl that cost $239,000 in 1967 goes for around $2.5 million today (Hiestand, 2004). TV rights fees afford networks such as CBS great control of the distribution of content for events such as the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. (Courtesy of George Mason Athletics/John Aronson) 4 Chapter One All that money coming in drastically increased the economic power and prestige of sports organizations and athletes. While the effect of free agency cannot be discounted, it has been primarily the infusion of media dollars that have enriched athletes beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. In 1969 the average Major League Baseball salary was $24,909. By 1990 the figure had risen to $578,000 and in 2006 it was $2,699,292 (Brown, 2008). In 2007, golfer Tiger Woods became the first athlete to surpass $100 million in income for a single season. His combination of salary, winnings, and endorsement money totaled nearly $112 million (Freedman, 2007). For its investment, the media had almost total control in shaping the presentation and image of the content providers. While the number of media outlets was still fairly small, the publicity generated by the media was typically positive. Sports reporters could develop relationships with athletes and coaches that often developed into friendships. As a result, reporters would be reluctant to publish material that would damage the athlete’s reputation. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of reporters covering Babe Ruth during the baseball star’s height of popularity in the 1920s. While the team was riding the train between cities Ruth ran through one of the cars stark naked. Right behind Ruth was a similarly naked woman chasing him with a knife. One reporter who wit- nessed the scene turned to another and said, “It’s a good thing we didn’t see that; other- wise we’d have to report on it” (Braine, 1985). This symbiotic relationship worked well for sports and media, but in many ways limited the enjoyment of the audience. The media completely controlled the content in terms of its amount, scheduling, and distribution. McCombs and Shaw (1972) called this the agenda-setting function of the media—their ability to exert a significant influ- ence on public perception through the control, filtering, and shaping of media content. For example, the three New York City baseball clubs banned live radio broadcasts of their games for five years in the 1930s because they were concerned the broadcasts were hurt attendance. More recently, television networks have scheduled event times to maxi- mize potential profit, even if it inconveniences a large portion of the viewing audience. World Series games, even those on weekends, have shifted from daytime to much later at night, in some cases not ending until after midnight in the Eastern time zone. Bear Bryant, the legendary former football coach at Alabama once commented, “You folks (the networks) are paying us a lot of money to put this game on television. If you want us to start at two in the morning, then that’s when we’ll tee it up” (Patton, 1984). Technology was also a limiting factor for sports audiences for several reasons. The distribution of sports content has depended on technology such as radio and television air- waves, and broadcast receivers. During the primitive stages of development for these technologies the quality of sports content often suffered. Recalling the early days of sports on radio in the 1920s, pioneer sportscaster Harold Arlin remembers, “Sometimes the transmitter worked and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes the crowd noise would drown us out and sometimes it wouldn’t. And quite frankly, we didn’t know what the re- action would be; if we’d be talking in a total vacuum or whether somebody would hear us” (Smith, 1987). Television went through similar growing pains. Long-time football Introduction to Media Relations in Sport 5 Table 1.1. The Growth of Television Technology To commemorate the 61st anniversary of the first televised baseball game, Fox broadcast the Cubs-Dodgers game on August 26, 2000, to highlight the advances in television sports technology.

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