Sport and the Media: The Close Relationship between Sport and Broadcasting SUDO, Haruo1) Abstract This report tries to demonstrate the relationship between broadcasting and sport (major sport and professional team sport) and, more importantly, to emphasize the importance of sport in broadcasting. Sport provides an important outlet for advertising in the mass-media due to its access to new audiences and its potential to increase circulation. Since the second world war in Japan, national newspapers have used the professional baseball league to promote their sales. With the advent of commercial TV, network TV broadcasting has clearly emphasized how important sport is in its programming content because it is recognized as one of the most popular TV programs. Sport provides an efficient way for broadcasters to target and communicate with large groups of people. In the 1990's as a whole, there was more sport (e.g. the Olympics, the soccer World Cup and the Super Bowl in the United States) on free-to-air television or pay television than at any other time in history. This report considers the effect of sport on the broadcasting market, defines the broadcasting market and then looks at the role of sport in it. It shows how the effect of television on sport has grown enormously in recent years which is demonstrated by the money coming into sport from the sale of broadcasting rights. A good example of this is BskyB's competition for broadcasting rights which has led to much higher fees for broadcasting sporting events across free-to air channels in Europe. This illustrates how there has always been a strong relationship between sport and broadcasting. Key words: broadcasting rights, television program contents, multimedia, media conglomerate, advertising media 1) Faculty of Social Sciences, Hosei University
Sport and the Media: The Close Relationship between Sport and Broadcasting SUDO, Haruo1) Abstract This report tries to demonstrate the relationship between broadcasting and sport (major sport and professional team sport) and, more importantly, to emphasize the importance of sport in broadcasting. Sport provides an important outlet for advertising in the mass-media due to its access to new audiences and its potential to increase circulation. Since the second world war in Japan, national newspapers have used the professional baseball league to promote their sales. With the advent of commercial TV, network TV broadcasting has clearly emphasized how important sport is in its programming content because it is recognized as one of the most popular TV programs. Sport provides an efficient way for broadcasters to target and communicate with large groups of people. In the 1990's as a whole, there was more sport (e.g. the Olympics, the soccer World Cup and the Super Bowl in the United States) on free-to-air television or pay television than at any other time in historỵ This report considers the effect of sport on the broadcasting market, defines the broadcasting market and then looks at the role of sport in it. It shows how the effect of television on sport has grown enormously in recent years which is demonstrated by the money coming into sport from the sale of broadcasting rights. A good example of this is BskyB's competition for broadcasting rights which has led to much higher fees for broadcasting sporting events across free-to air channels in Europe. This illustrates how there has always been a strong relationship between sport and broadcasting. Key words: broadcasting rights, television program contents, multimedia, media conglomerate, advertising media 1) Faculty of Social Sciences, Hosei University