Let me begin by
saying I love football. It is the
greatest sport under the heavens, the ultimate team sport combining brute
strength and intelligence in a battle of wills among combatants. I began playing in fourth grade at the
YMCA in North Little Rock, Ark. and didn’t stop until I graduated from Central
Missouri State University. I love
broadcasting games, love writing about the sport, love teaching my sons about
the game. I wish the Arena
Football League were on television more so I could watch in the spring. But even I think ESPN and Sports
Illustrated might be going a bit overboard in their coverage.
It seems every time
I turn on ESPN I’m getting reports about the Combine, which free agent is going
where, whose coach has just signed an extension. Yes, that is all newsworthy, but college basketball is
heating up as we ready for March Madness! Baseball spring training has begun!
Hockey is finally back on ice! The off-season football seems to be getting as
much coverage as the IN-season football!
Sports Illustrated
is just as football crazy. In the
March 4 issue, of the 51 pages dedicated to content (meaning those without
ads), 21 were dedicated to football.
That’s 41 percent of the magazine!
Baseball got less than half that much coverage in SI’s so called “Spring
Training ‘13” issue! The cover of
the March 4 magazine shows South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney busting through a
montage of basketball players and the header reads “Spring Football ’13 (Sorry,
hoops, two more weeks to wait).
True, in America,
football is king. Of Forbes
50 Most Valuable Sports Franchises, 31 are professional football
teams. Acording to http://mostpopularsports.net/in-america,
football in America is No. 1, followed by baseball, basketball, hockey and
soccer. The
Richest, a website dedicated to pop culture and finance, had the same
findings. So did the online
resource page “Buzzle”. And wikianswers.com
noted that, while NASCAR actually has the highest national ratings, football is
king among team sports.
This, then, begs
the question: Do media outlets
such as ESPN and Sports Illustrated bring us football because it is our
favorite sport, or is football our favorite sport because that is what are
presented with most often? As a professor of journalism, I am compelled to ask
the question. It’s the classic
chicken or the egg argument, but with a pigskin.
In 1972, journalism
professors Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw proposed Agenda-Setting
Theory. Their hypothesis, according to “A First Look at Communication
Theory”: The mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of
issues on their news agenda to the public agenda. In other words, to
quote University of Wisconsin political scientist Bernard Cohen, “The press may
not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is
stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.”
It would seem, at
least when it comes to football, McCombs and Shaw may be right!
Interesting. A student in my class (he is international) is doing a speech on why UCM should have a men's soccer team. I assume Title IX has something to do with it. What do you say? Could we handle (yet another) male sport on campus? Or does football prevent that?
ReplyDeletePam,
DeleteCould we HANDLE another male sport team on campus? Yes, I believe we can. Everyone seems to think that means athletics is getting more money while everyone else is doing without. In Division II, that is not the case. The VAST majority of student-athletes at Division II schools are not on full scholarship. They get some tuition money, maybe books, possibly room and/or board AT MOST. And that's only the very top athletes. The rest (like I did) get maybe $500-$1000 a semester for tuition. They then pay the rest. That does not even consider the many walk-ons who get nothing. All these students come to the university, in part, to play their sport. So, when you figure up how much it costs to field the team vs. the tuition dollars coming in, the university is well ahead.
NOW, as for the Title IX issue, no, we could not add another men's team and stay in compliance. As a proponent of football AND Title IX, I think this is a shame. I went to a Title IX conference at the NCAA offices in Indianannoplis and learned a lot more about the law and how it is applied. One of the most well respected women at the conference made my mind up for me: Football should be removed from the equation and then look at numbers for the REST of the sports. There simply is not another sport on the women's side to compare. When you consider the average college football team has about 100 players on the roster, that is the equivalent of almost seven basketball teams or five soccer teams. If you went strictly on equal number of roster spots (the law is much more complicated than that), that means you'd have to get rid of five to seven men's teams to be equal. She pointed out it isn't football and then women's sports, it's football and then everything else. And make no mistake, football is THE money maker in college athletics. It make not turn a profit, but it brings in more money than any other sport (by far) and, despite the high cost to operate, still generates much of the operating capital in college athletic programs.
I say all that to say this: It would be GREAT to have a men's soccer team at UCM, but it's not a reality.
I think there is a little of both at play. I love football more than any other sport and I can't get enough ESPN coverage.
ReplyDeleteBut I also think ESPN has a bit of a hold on sports. They can not only influence what fans think, but they try to dictate sports in general. I use the Total QBR as an example. No one else uses it, but ESPN will hold onto it until it's acknowledged by the NFL.
It's an interesting way to look at things. Thanks!
That's the idea, Johnathan, to get ya'll to look at things :) And you are correct: ESPN has a stranglehold on sports. How many channels do they have now? 20? 30? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE ESPN, but you have to wonder how they can set the agenda AND cater to the "selective exposure" masses at the same time!
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