Jay Scherer - Sport, Public Broadcasting, and Cultural Citizenship

Sport, Public Broadcasting, and Cultural Citizenship

This book examines the social, political and cultural dimensions of access to live telecasts of sport in the digital broadcasting era. It analyzes the wide-ranging theoretical debates, ideological positions and policy calculations concerning the provision of live, free-to-air telecasts of sport as a right of cultural citizenship. In addressing the dynamic relationships between the sport, media, capital and the state, the book provides a range of international comparative case studies that engage with these key debates and issues across several contrasting global spaces.

Jay Scherer is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta.

David Rowe is Professor of Cultural Research in the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Western Sydney, Australia.

Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society

Ian Wellard

Boria Majumdar and Nalin Mehta

Edited by Margaret Groeneveld, Barrie Houlihan and Fabien Ohl

Edited by Jim Parry, Mark Nesti and Nick Watson

The Body, Health and Consumerism

Edited by Eileen Kennedy and Pirkko Markula

Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues

Edited by Daniel Burdsey

An Institutional Perspective

Edited by Hallgeir Gammelster and Benot Senaux

Crossing Boundaries Ramn Spaaij

Edited by Adam Locks and Niall Richardson

Power, Pedagogy and the Popular

Michael Silk

Violence, Gender and Mixed Martial Arts

Dale C. Spencer

Beatriz Garcia

Race, Class, and Gender in the Ring

Benita Heiskanen

Critical Socio-Cultural Perspectives

Edited by Dominic Malcolm and Parissa Safai

An Interactionist Approach Harry Hiller

Edited by Barbara Segaert, Marc Theeboom, Christiane Timmerman and Bart Vanreusel

Edited by Kim Toffoletti and Peter Mewett

Barrie Houlihan and Iain Lindsey

Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker

Context, Consequences, and Consciousness

Anthony Bush, Michael Silk, David Andrews and Hugh Lauder

Politics, Cultures, and Identities Edited by Katrin Bromber, Birgit Krawietz, and Joseph Maguire

Narrative Immunity Deb Waterhouse-Watson

Policy, Interventions and Participation

Andrew Parker and Don Vinson

Social, Economic, Environmental and Ethical Perspectives

Phil McManus, Glenn Albrecht, and Raewyn Graham

Signal Lost?

Edited by Jay Scherer and David Rowe

Sport, Public Broadcasting, and Cultural Citizenship

Signal Lost?

Edited by Jay Scherer and David Rowe

First published 2014

by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Simultaneously published in the UK

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2014 Taylor & Francis

The right of Jay Scherer and David Rowe to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sport, public broadcasting, and cultural citizenship : signal lost? / edited by Jay Scherer and David Rowe.

pages cm.(Routledge research in sport, culture and society ; v. 25)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Television and sports. 2. Television broadcasting of sports. 3. Public broadcastingPolitical aspects. 4. Sports and society. I. Scherer, Jay, 1975

GV742.3.S65 2013

791.456579dc23

2012051247

ISBN13: 978-0-415-88603-1 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-75839-7 (ebk)

For Kathleen Hartford (Jay)

For Susan Rowe and Mary Hender, the Consummate Sister Act (David)

We would like to thank the editorial team at Routledge, especially Max Novick and Jennifer Morrow, as well as Marcela Mourao for her substantial editorial assistance. We acknowledge and appreciate the support provided by our home universities (the University of Alberta and University of Western Sydney), and especially by our immediate colleagues in our respective Faculty and Institute. Finally, Jays research was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The idea for this book emerged over the course of many years and we have benefited from innumerable discussions with scholars and friends from around the world. We would like to thank, in particular, Steve Jackson, Mike Sam, Brett Hutchins and Larry Wenner. A special debt of gratitude is owed to Dave Whitson, who has generously shared ideas with both of us for many years, and whose work remains a source of inspiration. Finally, we sincerely thank the authors who contributed to this collection, all of whom met our various demands with forbearance and good grace.

Our most important acknowledgements, though, are reserved for members of our families: to Heather Scherer and sundry Rowes. We thank them for their support and encouragement, without which this book would simply not have been possible.

Jay Scherer and David Rowe

Introduction: Sport and Public Service Broadcasting

For many of us born in the second half of the 20th century in countries where television became an ordinary feature of domestic life, watching live telecasts of sport on public and commercial terrestrial (free-to-air) broadcasters was, until very recently, a habitual leisure activity, part of the rhythm of our lives and a key source of fun, pleasure, community and, at times, common culture. In the new millennium, television continues to carry the most popular global sporting events, including the Olympic Games and the FIFA (International Federation of Football Associations) World Cup, as well as other key elements of national popular culture, into an unprecedented number of homes thanks to the emergence of new cable and satellite systems, and a host of other pay-TV services. Yet, just as these developments have radically expanded the viewing opportunities for subscribers (and filled the coffers of various sports leagues, organizations, teams, and professional athletes) so, too, have they worked to undermine the longstanding viewing rights (Rowe 2004a) of citizens irrespective of their class position or personal financial circumstances. Live access to tele-casts of sporting events of national cultural significance in locales around the world is increasingly a matter of capacity to pay. At the same time, an array of integrated mobile technologies controlled by powerful commercial telecommunication empires can now deliver a seemingly unlimited amount of sports content for paying audiences as part of integrated entertainment arenas that have challenged the dominance of free-to-air broadcast television as the medium of choice for the distribution and consumption of sport. In many countries, therefore, and especially those with a strong history of public service broadcasting mixed with commercial free-to-air television, there have recently been extensive policy reviews and public debates about protecting sports events of national importance and cultural significance from exclusive capture by dominant, commercial pay-TV networks. That these debates have been occurring against the backdrop of the introduction of full digital servicesservices that are increasingly integrated into global commercial networkshas, as many contributors to this book note, only amplified their political significance.