Pros and Cons of Televised Sports - Essay Example

Positive and Negative Effects of Televised Sports Introduction Television both outlines and mirrors the outlooks of the humanity. Nationwide networksand local stations televise large hours of sports exposure every year to millions of spectators. There are two different views regarding the effects of televised sports that are the negative and positive effect. It is true that these two effects are present in televised sports mainly because of the advertisement incorporated with it. A number of people hold the belief that television has a negative effect on sports. But, this argument can be disproved because of the reason that television builds a sense of admirer support, which eventually inspires a team and has a constructive effect on sport. Further it has the negative effect because of the tobacco and alcohol industries promote their products through the sports channel which is viewed by large number of adolescents which may cause to start smoking and alcohol consumption at an early age. In this essay these topics are discussed in detail. Telecast of hockey or any other game generates an early awareness and interest in the sport and creates a fan base. Such broadcasting provides a learning feature for viewers. These televised sports event also endorse player profiles enabling admirers to pursue their favorite athlete’s career growths. Spectators who are fascinated and knowledgeable are admirers who are present at games and encourage an excited environment that inspires a team to play well. Televised games generate awareness and interest in the sport where spectators who may not watch a game otherwise. For example the televised Men’s hockey finals in the year 2002 created a great amount of interest and enthusiasm in Canada as there was a record braking television watching spectators of 8.6 million – US Men’s Ice Hockey final on CBC. This game was so extensively viewed and created high awareness to hockey at the global level. This curiosity in hockey offers admirers with a sense of satisfaction for the Canadian game. Over and above these young viewers will build up a craze for the sport as they gain familiarity and understanding of the game hockey. This endorses a positive game atmosphere and develops team inspiration (Mega essay com. 2007) The history of U.S. television is related to the sports. Certainly, Television took off the ground because of sports, recollect pioneering television sports director Harry Coyle. He further adds that at present, sports require television to survive, however it was just the other way round when it first started. The sales of television sets went steep high when NBC started the televised program of heavyweight fights and the Army-Navy football game in 1947. Television is the possible cause for gathering large audience for the sporting event. Spectators recognize with their team, their favorite players, and those players who bear the good name of their city, college, state, cultural tradition, or other trait, into the sports field. Sports present real heroes, as against to the illusory characters of televised play and comedy. Admirers become known with those real persons and their teams, taking the guidance from them, learning about them, experiencing with them the joy of success and the pain of defeat. Sports events on television are live, it is history in the creation, and it is being ‘up close and personal’ as probably significant events unfold. And another reason people watch televised sports is that the camera’s focus often make great presentation on television. Carlton Fisks famous 1975 World Series homer, the American hockey victory over the Soviet Union team at the Lake Placid Olympics and the cameras focus to Thurman Thomas in the last quarter of the 1994 Super Bowl, its focus on the individual mistakes that had led to a fourth straight Buffalo Bills defeat, are the few examples that sports on television can show for its viewers. Certainly, television prefers sports with extensive interest for the reason that it promises more spectators and ad revenue (Baran n.pag ND) As the market is quite competitive, presently, advertising is one of the means to make their products known to the customers and sporting events is one among them.  Sport events are distinguished by high levels of participation and such involvement has found bigger awareness in advertisements.  Association with selected sports event may assist commercial ventures in distinguishing themselves and their products from competitors (McCarville & Copeland, 1994). Television networks buy the rights to televise a league’s game with the expectation of obtaining their money back, and a profit, by selling advertising time for companies.  Manufacturing companies presently spend billions of dollars yearly on sports advertising.  At the beginning of 21st century it is expected that companies will spend $13.8 billion annually on sports advertising (Fennel, 1990). Because a great amount of cash is used in publicity through televised sport events, it is necessary to survey its usefulness.  Even though publicity has been extensively used in televised sport events, there is very little research exists on its effectiveness on sport consumers and on ensuing consumer choices. Earlier study on advertising has concentrated on spectators (Turco, 1992) of sport events.  The results from a study of spectators showed that exposure to corporate names and symbols at sport events augmented product awareness and as a result improved the product consumption (Turco, 1992).  The reason of this study was to investigate the participation and prior understanding with sports influence advertisement memory in an effort to advance publicity practices and tactics of televised sports.  The study established the following points: that there is a reasonable relationship between prior experience with sports and participation with sports; there is a powerful positive relationship between enjoyment and excitement; there is a connection between participation with sports and joy and arousal; and excitement, joy and participation with sports do not have an effect on ad memory. The anticipated optimistic connection amid participation and excitement was supported. Even though the TV program affected the emotions of the spectators, it was established that program-induced feelings had no impact on ad memory (Tsiotsou 1997 n.pag) There was grave concern among the professional sports leagues in America and Europe that permitting matches to be televised live would reduce attendance at the stadium. In actual fact, one knows little about this state of affairs and how readily, supporters are ready to replace with television for live viewing. In an extensive review of influence on attendance demand in sport, Borland and Macdonald (2003) made the remark that there is no strong proof on how TV broadcasts have an effect on attendance: the number of studies in the area is comparatively little and they do not get constant result. Borland and Macdonald reminds that there has been some predisposition for European studies to find zero or small pessimistic impacts on attendance while American work, for instance on baseball and college football, has repeatedly found a positive connection between crowd size and telecasting. The exact effects are certainly diverse over time and across sports, particularly in view of the fact that they may depend on the type of broadcasting platform involved (Buraimo, et.al. n.pag. 2006) The most negative aspect of advertisement during the sports telecast is about the tobacco and alcohol. The present study shows that the beer advertising has an effect on teenagers’ understanding of beer brands, drinking attitudes, and drinking habits. Once assessing revelation to advertising with events such as amount of television viewed per week or number of sports programs viewed, these results are considered constant and this study shows just about .20 correlations between gross measures of advertising revelation and plan to drink as an adult. In understanding the sizes of correlations, Cohen (1992) has recommended that a correlation of .10 is small; a correlation of .30 is reasonable; and a correlation of .50 is huge. The promising explanation of this consistent small correlation is that media do not have a huge effect on teenager drinking attitudes and conduct. On the other hand, another likely analysis is that using gross events of advertising experience does not give sufficient accuracy to find a larger effect. Studies on advertising effectiveness exposed bigger correlations. The maximum advertised brands of beer in 1998 and 1999 are the brands that had the maximum brand knowledge, brand preference, brand usage, and brand reliability amongst junior and senior high school students through the school year 1999-2000. The measure of correlations for each of these range vary from .63 to .79, with the maximum correlation being .79 linking beer advertising financial statements and adolescent drinking. One should understand that it is against the law for anyone under age 21 to buy and consume alcohol. Similar studies were conducted in the 1990s, recording a link between cigarette advertising and youth smoking. Children as young as six years old demonstrated brand consciousness and cigarette publicity budgets was appreciably related to the percentage of teenagers who smoked each brand. Detailed studies point out that the teens, those who were not smoking and did not have a plan to smoke are three times more likely to start smoking if they were exposed to smoking-related promotional program. It is considered that the media-related concern is the cause of 25 percent of the variance in youngsters intention to drink alcohol as a grown-up is due to media-related variables. Peer-related variables record for 10 percent of the variance, parent-related variables account for five percent, demographic variables record for five percent, and pessimistic drinking attitudes (beliefs about the dangers of drinking) report for three percent. Consequently, of the variables calculated here, media-related variables report for the greatest amount of variance in youngsters intention to drink (Gentile n.pag. 2001). It is projected that heavy amount of alcohol publicity outlay went towards ads through televised sporting events. Alcoholic-beverage manufacturing industries spent $540.8 million to advertise their products through sports program on TV. The liquor industry enhanced its advertising expenses during televised sports by 350 percent between 2001 and 2003. Alcoholic-beverage industries spent over $52 million on advertising during televised college sporting events in 2003 and so on. According to Zwarun there is evidence for the occurrence of alcohol and tobacco advertising during televised sporting events. As per Madden and Grube’s study of alcohol and tobacco advertising in televised sports reveals that even though certain types of advertisements have reduced, the alcohol and tobacco industries have modified the advertising limitations such as those included in the Master Settlement Agreement, the immense court case between state attorneys general and the tobacco industry. Even though Zwarun’s the article mentions the importance of the Master Settlement Agreement in reducing the occurrence and type of ads, the writer did not propose precise policy changes that are required to minimize alcohol and tobacco promotion in televised sports. It is likely that youths forms 13%the national television viewing audience for all types of programs, and most youths account for watching sporting events on television. Many studies have provided evidence for a link between tobacco and alcohol advertising through sporting events and use of those products. Because of the mounting evidence for the connection among tobacco and alcohol advertising and youth consumption of these products, it is recommended that a change is required on the policy. Global tobacco advertising standards specify that tobacco ads should not ‘be of particular appeal to youth’ or be revealed at events with more than 25% young viewers. Execution of strategies to further restrict alcohol and tobacco advertising in televised sports going to be difficult; hence, it is significant for alcohol and tobacco researchers and policy makers to act together. For instance, efforts could jointly focus on improving policy to ban sports sponsorships for alcohol and tobacco products during televised sporting events with a youth audience of 15% or more. With cooperation and working jointly on policy change, considerable change can happen to stop or lessen underage use of tobacco and alcohol. Another negative aspect is the way in which television covers, women engaged in athletics. The method in which female athletes are seen and also about the position of women in the society is not reported correctly. The Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles has researched and found that the television coverage of womens sports comparing to men’s sports is underreported. This discrimination is unfair and wrong. It should be changed and it must be changed. Conclusion It is very clear that there are various positive effects and benefits of Televised Sports at the same time there are also unavoidable negative effects of Televised Sports but these negative effects can be reduced to a minimum level by adopting the researched strategies. It is certain that sports will continue to be closely entangled with progress in television. Major events will continue to serve as national services. And viewers will persist to follow preferred teams and superstar players, watching from a distance as the skills, the strength, the speed, and the tactics of athletes, coaches, and owners are rutted against one another on the screen in the home. Work Cited Baran S.J. Sports and Television The Museum of Broadcast Communications 2 December, 2007 Buraimo, B.Forrest, D. and Simmons, R. Robust Estimates Of The Impact Of Broadcasting On Match Attendance In Football University of Central Lancashire Lancashire Business School (December, 2006) 2 December, 2007 Borland, J. and Macdonald, R. (2003) Demand for sport, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 19, 478-502. Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155-159. Fennell, T. (1990), The Riches of Sport, MacLeans, (April), 42-45 Gentile, D.A., Walsh, D.A., Bloomgren,B.W., Atti, J.A., and Norman, J.A. Frogs Sell Beer: The Effects of Beer Advertisements on Adolescent Drinking Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior (April, 2001) 2 December, 2007 McCarville, R. E. and Copeland, R. P. (1994), Understanding Sport Sponsorship Through Exchange Theory Journal of Sport Management, 8(2), 102-114. Mega essay com. Positive Effects of Television on Sport (2007) 2 December, 2007 Tsiotsou, R. The Effect of Emotions on The Memory of TV Commercials (1997) Cyber Journal of Sports Marketing. 2 December, 2007 Turco, D. M. (1992), Event Sponsorship: Effects on Consumer Brand Loyalty and Consumption, Sport Marketing Quarterly, 3(3), 35-37.         Read More