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has television improved sport?

undead

undead

Greenlighter
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just a question... pretty self explanatory.

do you feel that television has improved sport? i ask because i figure with as much access as we have to sports on tv, i would think that over time (from times without tv to times with tv) sports have become more scientific, more refined, etc. there's more at stake (bets, passion, what have you) in sports nowadays and the athletes have to live up to that. does anyone else feel that television (and to a lesser extent, radio) has upped the anty so to speak in sports?
 
Probably, but I would say that it's just a piece of what has moved sports along. Mainly I think it's the paycheck that being a superstar, that drive young athletes.
 
i'd agree with that, but wouldn't you say that the increase in salaries has run parallel or close to parallel with the increase in visibility created by tv?

i definitely think there's a direct correlation.
 
I think the language that surrounds events like professional sports games are so similarly meaningless it is the reason all words are losing meaning / the young have a seeming disrespect for words in general. The wording that surrounds events like the super bowl is evocative of a civil war yet it refers to a pretty mundane event.
 
There have been plenty of positives that television has bought to sport but as a whole the effects have been negative. Sure television (and sponsorship) has increased professionalism and increased the overall standard and spectacle of most sports. Being able to train full time as athletes allows a more explosive element to evolve with bigger hits, faster action more extreme feats. In most cases this pushes the sport forward.

The problem then arises that networks need more product and more ways to sell advertisements. More meaningless games takes something special away from some games. I can't get excited about a 7 match Cricket one day international between two countries with nothing on the line but a token "Gillete" trophy . The World Cup every 4 years is the pinnacle that most teams (and fans) will build towards. Players are still paid the high wages with no real motivating force to succeed. This has in the case of cricket in the past 20 years opened players up to association with bookmakers (particularly from India) and match fixing. Credibility is quickly eroded when every upset is met with calls of a fix. Even in the end of the NFL regular season people doubt the integrity of some matches that do not affect the play-offs. Perhaps if players wages were link to wins not just a salary I would not be as cynical.

The NFL is a classic sport where I feel television has had an adverse affect. I am constantly frustrated with interruptions in play from lengthy time outs, changing of offence/defence with a never ending package of advertising squeezed in between. You only have to look at the ridiculous hype surrounding Super Bowl ads to see how much television has infected the spectacle. For a match of supposed 60 minutes of action I get but a fraction of action and a mountain of advertising. I can't help but feel that this sport would have evolved differently if television hadn't shaped it over the last 60 years.

The use of technology to officiate has no doubt improve the accuracy of refereeing and umpiring. Hawkeye in tennis and cricket as well as slow motion replays has greatly reduced the number if crucial incorrect calls, but even this development is double edged. It does create two tiers of sport. One of the reasons soccer is slow to adopt television referees is that it wants to sport to be able to be played at the same conditions no matter where it is played in the world. If all you need is three officials and two goals you are able to play every match from a lowly regional qualifier to the World cup final in the middle of the Amazon or New york city, under identical conditions. Also it slows the action down. I do miss the days when extremely close calls in cricket were officiated with the "benefit of the doubt to the batsmen" and we got on with the game. Sometimes it feels they are trying to find a way to reverse a call not let the game flow.
 
^ excellent points. i'm with you when it comes to the advertising. the thing that pisses me off the most is when they show the "mcdonalds' i'm lovin it play of the game." it irritates me to no end that they have to call it that. or that stadiums are being named after products (like they talk about in baseketball). i suppose i was looking at it more in a manner where i was forgetting everything but the game play. i feel like television has helped the evolution of the athletes, but i'd agree that it's diluting the sports themselves.

i enjoy the fact that i can watch a soccer game and there won't be a single commercial during the halves. i also really enjoyed the hockey games during the olympics, brought to us with limited commercial breaks. and when i say limited, i mean the commercials were only during the intermission periods.
 
Pander Bear said:
football's delays are part of the sport, not the corrosive effect of advertising. Unsponsored highschool games take just as long as the superbowl.
Click to expand...

Only because the lower leagues follow the big boys. You still need continuality as you progress up the different leagues. I'm sure if the NFL started to play a single team (not offense/defence) in an attempt to speed games up/reduce downtime, and eliminated time outs, then High School game play would follow. It is in the NFL's interest to have multiple time outs, 2 minute warnings etc.
 
^ I agree with that, but I also disagree. If you did that, then you would obviously be playing a completely different sport. Take Basketball for example, sure there are game delays, time outs for tv, but in highschool there aren't random time outs, you get so many and you take'em when necessary. Football on the other hand is as much of a chess match as it is a physical sport. If you tried to speed it up a whole bunch by doing those things, again it wouldn't be the same sport. What has happened in that case though, has been that sponsors have taken advantage of time-outs. Which has allowed more money to be poured into the sport. And that allows for bigger faster players. Now after you've seen the same ad for boniva for the 10th time do what every other sane man does, get up , go to the kitchen, and pour yourself another drink, or go to the pisser, or talk shit to your buddy about how his team is gettin creamed like a buncha pansies. And I don't think that without the advent of television it would have evolved much differently. You'd still have time-outs, and you'd still have offensive and defensive players. And you probably wouldn't have the forward pass. Honestly TV has done so much for sports. All you have to do is look at MMA and think back 10 years ago... it wasn't shit, it barely existed. Guys were gettin in the ring and fightin for 100k, there was very little sponsorship... Fighters weren't as well trained, didn't understand other fighting styles as well... Now look at it.

Edit: Damn you panderbear.... I was aiming that at busty.
 
i'm confident he'll understand that.

Football coalesced in college play decades before the advent of televised games. All the play stoppages, all the clock management, and so forth. Secondly, College doesn't follow the same play time rules as the NFL, as they aren't as concerned with television and heightening the intensity of the last few minutes as the Pros are-- hence the rules changes after the 2 minute warning.

Besides, if busty was correct, you'd see considerably different rules for leagues who aren't beholden to tv ad revnue, like teh CFL, the arena league, youth football, foreign leagues... you don't generally speaking.
 
Apart from any effect that TV has had on the sport itself....games are much easier to watch and in some ways appreciate.

How could you ever hope to fully appreciate golf without tv ? The way it is now, you get taken to every place on the course and it's one shot after another with no waiting in between.

Baseball live and baseball on tv are like night and day. I'm so spoiled with the centre field camera view of home plate. Try figuring out what kind of game the pitcher is having if you're in the right field bleachers....or even down the first base line.

I prefer to attend hockey games live. Same for soccer and football...though without the replays in football you miss a lot of what is happening on the line.
 
Overall yes it's improved sporting events. But I do get irritated by ESPN in that they try to blow everything that tiny up into a huge deal. They try to make everything in your face.

I guess I just hate espn. they are fucking everywhere. half of sports talk is espn radio. espnu, espn360, espn 1, 2,3 etc where does it stop.
and scot van pelt. he looks like a penis with glasses on.
 
^ sweet, thanks for that! :)

edit: btw, after reading that... what a fantastic article! i see his points and they're extremely valid. i enjoyed the section about skills the most because it's something that i'm quite an advocate for. over my years of playing, i've developed a pretty keen ability to perform tricks, but usually during games, i keep it simple. i pride myself on being able to be at the right place, play well off the ball, making good runs, and baiting the opponents into my defensive strategies when they have the ball by giving them a "comfortable" amount of space. i'll rarely break out the arsenal unless i feel i need to. so i completely understand the need for good tactical football as opposed to the purely flashy game.

plus when i watch the games (i think i've mentioned this before) i have to download them because i don't have any channels that really show the EPL let alone enough of it to follow the blues so i luckily have the ability to stop and rewind. usually when a goal is scored i get extremely into the tactics that brought it to the back of the net. i'll often end up going all the way back to the point where the ball was turned over in order to see the play unfold. :D

i figure, if nothing else, it helps me improve my game and helps me recognize the game around me better.
 
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It depends, in some ways it has improved sport and in some ways has not. It was TV that brought the tie break to tennis which I do not think is a good thing. Golden goals in soccer too wouldn't have been invented if it wasn't for TV. Not really a fan of those either.
 
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