Sport Broadcasting for Managers

Hunter Fujak, Stephen Frawley, Hunter Fujak, Stephen Frawley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000597431
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Sport- & Bewegungswissenschaft

This is the first book to focus on sport broadcasting as a core aspect of contemporary sport business and management. It explains how sport business professionals can manage sport broadcasting as an essential component of their work.

Drawing on cutting-edge theory and research into sport broadcasting around the world, the book introduces the history and core concepts of sport broadcasting, before showing how broadcasting intersects with sport management practice. It covers key themes and issues such as the law and regulation, valuation and negotiation, strategy, logistics and consumer behaviour.

Outlining best practice for sport managers, this book is essential reading for any course on sport business and management, sport marketing or sport media, and a useful companion to courses on broadcast production, sports journalism or digital media.

1Sport Broadcasting for ManagersManagerial Dimensions

Stephen Frawley and Hunter Fujak

DOI: 10.4324/9781003140061-1

Introduction

The purpose of this book, Sport Broadcasting for Managers, is to explore the practice of sport broadcasting from a management perspective. Given the financial growth of sport broadcasting contracts over the past 30–40 years for professional sports leagues and for the organisers of sport mega-events, such as the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup, it is surprising that there has been only a small number of academic books that have explored the topic, few though from an applied managerial perspective. The books that have explored sport broadcasting have often been narrow in their focus, concentrating on areas such as economics or sociological domains.

Accordingly, there is yet to be a thorough academic resource developed for those involved in, or those who aspire to be involved in, sport broadcasting. The absence of such a resource is surprising, considering broadcasting represents the largest source of revenue for many major professional sport leagues, all around the world, as well as being a key strategic activity for smaller professional sport leagues to grow and thrive. Sport broadcasting, too, is an under-acknowledged yet influential component of the broader media landscape. Despite this, education in sport broadcast management has been largely confined to broad-based chapters within sport marketing textbooks, books that are typically targeted at undergraduate students.

Hence, and in order to inform current and aspiring sport management practitioners, Sport Broadcasting for Managers has attempted to produce quality analysis and research that addresses this gap within sport management and sport media scholarship. In doing so, the book not only synthesises key existing knowledge within the sport broadcasting domain, it also produces new and novel research and analysis that informs both theoretical and practice-based ideas. The book has been written in collaboration with an international team of sport management and media scholars, designed around four key areas: the regulation of sport broadcasting (Chapter 2); operational components of sport broadcasting, including measurement and production (Chapters 3 and 4); the economics of sport broadcasting, including valuation and international markets (Chapters 5, 6 and 7); and media consumption and technology, including the development of new broadcast forms and the relationship between sport broadcasting and sports betting (Chapters 8, 9 and 10). The final chapter of the book then goes on to explore the critical issues and future directions for sport broadcasting research and practice (Chapter 11). The following section provides a brief overview of each of these chapters.

The Structure of the Book

Regulation

A significant change in the way sport has been broadcast has occurred over the past two decades, with particularly dramatic changes taking place over the past 5–10 years. The increasing use of the internet to deliver sport broadcasts, be that live and/or delayed, has reshaped the sport broadcasting environment. In Chapter 2, written by Evens and Smith, various national examples are provided exploring the critical challenges, as well as the possible opportunities for sport broadcasting regulation, in the face of the rapid growth of over-the-top (OTT) platforms. Given this growth and rate of change, Chapter 2 will explore the consequences for competition and the related elements of buying and selling premium sport content. Secondly, given the fragmentation now of sport broadcast markets globally and the significant increase in the available content, sports fans are being asked more often to pay for content that previously was available via free to air broadcast platforms. The consequences for regulation and intervention given the financial costs imparted now on many sport fans is another important issue that Evens and Smith argue needs to be more fully explored.

Measurement

Although an imperfect process, television audience measurement (TAM) is an essential feature of the sport media ecosystem. TAM endeavours to provide both the buyers and sellers of media rights content the ability to measure not only how many consumers are watching but also who is watching sport media. The accurate measurement of television viewership provides these market participants the currency upon which the value of sport broadcast rights and related assets can be determined. Chapter 3, written by Fujak and Karg, therefore, attempts to explain TAM processes, starting with its historical development, then reviewing current TAM practices, and finally outlining the future challenges for sport broadcasting measurement.

Production

Chapter 4, written by Wilmot, investigates an area of sport broadcasting that is surprisingly under-researched given its vital function: that being the production of sport broadcasts. The quality of sport broadcasts is largely shaped by resources and planning but remains underpinned by the notion of storytelling. Notably, while broadcast technology may continue to advance, many of the key principles behind sport broadcast production remain foundational. Chapter 4, therefore, is interested in the logistics and organisation of sport production. The chapter will explore how the production of sport broadcasts are designed, planned, managed and delivered within the constraints of time and budgets.

Economics

As alluded to earlier, sport broadcasting models have been disrupted through the emergence of new technology and OTT platforms. This disruption has created both challenges and opportunities for professional and semi-professional sport leagues around the world. Chapter 5, written by Mondello and Fortunato, further explores these matters from an economic and financial perspective. In particular, Chapter 5 examines how leagues and sport governing bodies can navigate these challenges to achieve economic success.

Valuation

As outlined earlier in this chapter, a key feature of sport broadcasting over the past 40–50 years has been the dramatic growth in content valuation. Chapter 6, written by Feuillet and Scelles, explores the various factors that shape the valuations for sport broadcasts rights with a particular focus on European football. The chapter starts by exploring the determinants of broadcast valuation for both main stakeholders: the media organisation and the professional league. The second part of the chapter examines the negotiation process and what has become known as the ‘winners curse’. The final part of the chapter explores examples of sport broadcasting valuation failure drawing on examples from some of the largest professional football leagues in Europe.

International Markets

An interesting feature of sport broadcasting over the past few decades has been the drive by some professional sport leagues (and clubs for that matter) into new and often large international markets. For instance, Asia, and particularly China, has seen many sports and leagues from not only North America and Europe but also nations such as Australia (i.e. the Australian Football League), attempting to implement growth strategies for their various professional leagues and sports. In Chapter 7, by Solberg and Gaustad, these matters are explored in detail, starting with an overview of the relevant theoretical perspectives that informs such international strategy. The chapter also explores the supply and demand characteristics that shape international expansion as well as the historical patterns that underpin such development.

Broadcast Forms

Chapter 8, written by Wymer and Thompson, investigates the development of new broadcast forms with a specific focus on what is described as social live streaming services, otherwise known as SLSS. The chapter explores the emergence of SLSS as well as the managerial and organisational implications for this new broadcast form. The chapter moreover looks at how professional sport can best utilise SLSS to its advantage by attracting new audiences via non-traditional sport coverage and coverage beyond the primary telecast.

Media Consumption

A critical feature of sport broadcasting that has often lacked attention in the sport management research literature has been understanding sport media consumption as an expression of fandom. While a significant amount of sport management research has explored why people attend and play sport, the viewership and consumption of sport broadcasting are still fertile territory for greater research. Hence, in Chapter 9, written by Karg, the focus is on understanding the sport media consumer and the elements that shape their broadcast experience. In order to understand this type of sport media consumption, the chapter discusses the symbiotic and substitutional relationships that influence and develop sport media consumption.

Sports Betting

Another consequence of the dramatic growth of sport broadcasting over the past few decades has been the intertwined growth of the sports betting industry. In Chapter 10, written by Lopez-Gonzalez, the relationship between sport broadcasting and sports betting is explored with special attention given to how sport viewership and fan engagement is shaped and influenced. In addition to the areas mentioned earlier, the potential risks to the community and sports fans are explored as a result of this growing relationship between sport broadcasting and the sports betting industry.

Future Directions

The final chapter of the book brings together the various arguments and debates outlined in the proceeding chapters to highlight the challenges and opportunities for sport broadcasting moving into the future both from a practice-based and theoretical perspective.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the purpose of Sport Broadcasting for Managers is to examine the practices of sport broadcasting from an applied management perspective. The enormous amount of capital spent on sport broadcasting globally makes the topic of sport broadcasting a critically important one for those studying sport management and for those working in the sport and/or media industry.

2Regulating the Digital Sport Broadcasting MarketNew Players, Old Problems

Tom Evens and Paul Smith

DOI: 10.4324/9781003140061-2

Introduction

A defining feature of the contemporary sport broadcasting marketplace is the growing use of the internet to deliver live (and non-live) sports content to viewers online, over-the-top (OTT) (Hutchins et al, 2019; Smith, 2019). Using a range of different national examples, this chapter considers some of the main challenges and opportunities posed by the growth of OTT delivery for the regulation of sport broadcasting. Specifically, the chapter focuses, in turn, on two key areas that have long defined the ‘politics of sports broadcasting regulation’ (Smith et al., 2015, p. 722). First, competition issues linked to the buying, selling and distribution of premium sports content; second, legislation designed to safeguard coverage of certain national and international sporting events, such as the Olympic Games or the FIFA ...