New Media and Sport

During the past week in the Sport Broadcasting module our discussing moved from the traditional symbiotic relationship between legacy media (print, radio, and TV) and sport to focus on how the so called digital revolution has changed and disrupted the once sedimented relationship.

One important point highlighted by Gantz and Lewis back in 2014 is that nowadays we are experiencing an age of plenitude regarding the availability of sport in different media (see my post here about digital disruption and sport). And because of that and our limited attention (see here a discussion on attention economy, sport and media), understanding our platform selection and how we culturally use them to consume sport both complementary and competitively is paramount for anyone working in the sports media industry.

The advent of new digital and interactive media within the once sedimented ecology of media (print, radio, and TV) helped in destabilising traditional media roles (see here post about traditional media roles) by allowing almost anyone to become also producers of their content, and above all to bypass traditional media to connected directly to their beloved brands, clubs, and athletes (see here post about illusion of intimacy, social media and sport).

Moreover, what this digital revolution caused was the ultimate realisation that to some extent all sport businesses are operating within the media industry. For instance, a football club is not anymore only a football club competing against other clubs but a business competing against other businesses for your scarce attention (see Liverpool FC’s CEO position regarding Fortnite as his competitor).

But we cannot limit our view to just one direction analysis. It is not only sport businesses that are migrating to this new digital media {slash} entertainment {slash} sport industry, rather what we see are businesses from all sides flocking together to this place. One clear example is Apple with their newly announcement Apple Fitness+ service (see my post here) that has the potential to disrupt the way we consume and practice sport.