Appropriating a truism of American politics, all sports is local.
The enduring reality of sports is that hometown fans establish deep, meaningful connections with teams, players, and events -- connections that run so deep that these avid fans will overcome virtually any hurdle of time, space, or expense to follow their favorites. That’s why, for close to a century, sports fans have been early adopters of every new media platform that has been invented and commercialized.
In turn, this is why sports content has become a cornerstone of the establishment of every successful new media platform. When RCA introduced analog radios in the 1920s and 30s, they knew that they needed content to drive purchases. So, RCA created the NBC radio network, which then acquired the rights to the World Series to attract fans and build penetration.
Since then, broadcast television, cable and satellite television, satellite radio, wireless, and the Internet have all called upon sports content to drive their growth and build viewership usage. Baseball games became a mainstay of local and national broadcast television. NFL football drove the success of network, cable, and satellite television. Eventually, most major professional leagues and college sports conferences began streaming a significant part of their games over the Internet.
Moreover, with every successful sports content relationship, new untested media was transformed into traditional media, with sustainable, profitable levels of viewership and sponsorship. These successes, in turn increased the price and enhanced the value of key branded sports properties. Today, it is a seller’s market for sports content as an increasing number of new media platforms and companies chase after a relatively fixed number of properties.
As the fight to distribute sports content intensifies, supplemental or obscure programming has become commercially viable. Batting practice and poker, high school games and press conferences, lacrosse and Little League Baseball have all experienced surges in coverage, distribution, and dollars across an expanding range of media platforms. Much of it may seem crude to those looking for more imaginative uses of the Internet and digital media, but you can’t get around a near-century’s worth of success.
What’s the endgame for all of these games? Eventually, entropy will envelop sports content. In an infinite media universe, every game, event, and attendant supplemental programming will be streamed, televised, and transmitted by everyone to everyone. You will find everything everywhere. If it has an audience of sports fans, no matter how small, there will be an economical way to produce and televise it -- from your child’s junior soccer game to the local amateur golf tournament to the hundreds of thousands of sports events taking place at local high schools and colleges. Every aspect of every league will be available for viewing. The officials and executives, training facilities and locker rooms... Everything that fans obsess over will be accessible. Every sports entity will become its own content provider, with everything on the sports calendar available for viewing.
In this maximized sports media universe, everything may be equally distributed, but not everything will be equal. There will still be major leagues, events and games that attract large numbers of viewers and sponsors. “Large” may be a relative term in this fractionalized universe, but there will be games and events that are large enough to become and remain substantially profitable.
In many respects, we’re approaching this endgame now. Traditionalists may find it to be less than satisfying, but it will be a bonanza for most sports fans. An infinite buffet -- March Madness every month and day of the year. Too much? Perhaps, but if viewers continue to demand it and value is demonstrated, which sport or media platform will contradict an unbroken line of success leading back to the World Series on radio, and say no?
— Lee H. Berke, President, LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Email This
TWEET THIS
