Page 201 - Sport Culture and the Media

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and viewer. In fact, both possibilities exist – the affective power of sport is such
that few committed spectators who identify closely with the people performing
on screen (which include athletes, coaches and other fans) can watch in a cool,
detached way. The terms ‘committed’ and ‘identify’ are of paramount impor-
tance because, as we saw in discussing sports photography in Chapter 5, it is
perfectly possible for male spectators to objectify sportswomen in a sexually
voyeuristic fashion when they have no respect for their activities as athletes. But
once sporting qualities come to the fore – as in the case, say, of female Olympic
swimmers involved in close races against rival nations – then it is likely that the
emphasis on ‘just looking’ in a voyeuristic way will recede (at least temporarily)
in favour of an active absorption in the sport itself.
Second, the logic of (especially commercial) television is deeply reliant on
fostering a sense of audience involvement. If men and women care about
their sport, then that level of emotional commitment will have at least to be
matched, if not stimulated and exceeded, by sports television. The huge general
popularity of sport does not of itself deliver audiences in specific instances.
There is constant competition between individual sports (like basketball and
football) and between sport and other forms of popular entertainment (such as
music or film) for audiences. Television sports audiences have to be ‘primed’,
therefore, and can always be profitably expanded. But first the missing millions
must be found.

Audience hunting

As I discussed earlier, it makes little sense for a mass medium to exclude or
alienate men who do not regard themselves as ‘sports nuts’, or gay men and
women who like sport, or women who could be encouraged to develop an
interest in it by various means. Miller (1998a: 107), for example, notes that half
of the British television audience of 24 million for a match during the 1990
soccer World Cup were women, which led one newspaper to speculate that
‘TV production houses and female viewers were both engaged by the “bum not
the ball”’. Playing up the human interest or broader entertainment side of
sport (normally associated with ‘soft’ news and ‘low’ drama) to appeal to larger
television audiences can, of course, annoy the purist sports spectator. While
the application of new camera and sound technologies (such as miniaturized
lenses and microphones on the field of play) are likely to be much welcomed
by regular viewers who are looking for an ever closer simulation of the actual
event, the explanation of rules or moves or various comic innovations are
anathema to the ‘expert’ viewer. As Barnett has noted: