SPORTS TV
This book offers an introductory guide to sports TV, its history in the United States, the genres defining characteristics, and analysis of its critical significance for the business practices, formal properties, and social, cultural, and political meanings of the medium.
Victoria E. Johnson discusses a range of examples, from textual analysis of programs such as Monday Night Football and Being Serena to examination of television rights details, to sports TVs technological innovations and engagement of critical political debates. Johnson examines sports TV from its introduction to the ESPN+ era. She proposes that sports, as seen on TV in all of its iterations, is the central cultural forum for working through questions of community ideals, struggles over national and regional mythologies, and questions of representative citizenship.
This book is an ideal guide for students and scholars of television, media, and cultural studies as well as those with an interest in television genre, sports TV history, and contemporary sport and media culture.
Victoria E. Johnson is Professor of Film and Media Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Her Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity (2008) was awarded the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award in 2009. She writes about the cultural history of US television by examining its popular geographic mythologies, representations of race and place, and sports media.
ROUTLEDGE TELEVISION GUIDEBOOKS
The Routledge Television Guidebooks offer an introduction to and overview of key television genres and formats. Each guidebook contains an introduction, including a brief history; defining characteristics and major series; key debates surrounding themes, formats, genres, and audiences; questions for discussion; and a bibliography of further reading and watching.
POLITICAL TV
Chuck Tryon
LIFESTYLE TV
Laurie Ouellette
REALITY TV
Jonathan Kraszewski
THE SITCOM
Jeremy Butler
FAIRY-TALE TV
Jill Terry Rudy and Pauline Greenhill
SPORTS TV
Victoria E. Johnson
SPORTS TV
Victoria E.Johnson
First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2021 Taylor & Francis
The right of Victoria E. Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her 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
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-415-72293-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-72294-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-85799-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Perpetua
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
In memory of
Karen E. Johnson (19402016) and David C. Johnson (19372017)
For everythingincluding encouraging me to play sports, and to become a TV Professor
And for Chris Davis: You are an Ironman
CONTENTS
- 1 Not a Traditional Business: Sports TV as For-Profit Public Good?
- 2 Sportvision: The Texts and Tech of Sports TV
- 3 Generation IX: Sports TV, Gender, and Voice
- 4 The Level Playing Field? Sports TV and Cultural Debate
- 5 The Sports Media Ecosystem: Sports TV's Out-of-Home Communities
- 1 Not a Traditional Business: Sports TV as For-Profit Public Good?
- 2 Sportvision: The Texts and Tech of Sports TV
- 3 Generation IX: Sports TV, Gender, and Voice
- 4 The Level Playing Field? Sports TV and Cultural Debate
- 5 The Sports Media Ecosystem: Sports TV's Out-of-Home Communities
Guide
1.1 The NFL on CBS TV |
1.2 NBC Sports Regional Sports Network Family |
2.1 Roone Arledge, creator of the Arledge aesthetic |
2.2 The FOX Trax or glow puck at the NHL All-Star Game |
2.3 NHL. TV's GoPro POV |
2.4 TopTracer's videogamegraphic aesthetic in PGA coverage on CBS |
3.1 Real Sports with Bryant Gumbelfeatures HBO Sports quality aesthetic |
3.2 espnW's website's Nine for IX portal emphasizes balance between athletic achievement and maternity |
3.3 Being Serena emphasizes Serena Williams's authorship and labor |
3.4 Serena Williams's Instagram feed: direct address, labor, the intimate and familial |
4.1 LeBron James's Decision is announced on ESPN |
4.2 The NFL's 2020 Kickoff video claims Football is a Microcosm of America |
4.3 The WNBA's (Washington) Mystics tweet for social justice |
5.1 Contemporary theater TV in Las Vegas |
5.2 St. Louis's Ballpark Village TVs |
All thanks are due to Erica Wetter for initiating the Routledge Television Guidebooks series and for her exceptional support, kindness, and patience when an unfathomable series of unexpected life-events happened between Sports TVs initial contracting and its submission. During and after Ericas tenure at Routledge, Emma Sherriff has been exceptional to work with and I thank the entire production team.
I am privileged to be in the company of fellow series authors who have also been wonderful interlocutors regarding the work, not to mention terrific friends. These include Laurie Ouellette, Jon Kraszewski, Ellen Seiter, and Ron Becker. I thank the following colleagues for encouraging earlier publications, inviting talks, or joining in conference panels or workshops regarding sports media and the media industries, each of which informed this project and shaped its contours: Aaron Baker, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Mary Beltrn, Branden Buehler, Michael Butterworth, CL Cole, Lester Friedman, Herman Gray, Hollis Griffin, Jennifer Holt, Amanda Lotz, Helen Morgan Parmett, Roopali Mukherjee, Thomas Oates, Alisa Perren, Tim Piper, Yeidy Rivero, Steven Secular, Samantha N. Sheppard, Markus Stauff, Ethan Tussey, and Lawrence Wenner.
I am particularly grateful for conversations and collaborations with Jon Kraszewski that led me to first write about sports TV. An early discussion with Reece Peck helped illuminate key questions around which all of my subsequent writing about sports have turned. And, across many years and venues, the keen insights and unparalleled expertise and encouragement of Travis Vogan have been invaluable and inspirational. Thank you to Anne Bergman, Bridget Cooks, Jen Holt, and Kristen Hatch for ongoing local support and wisdom.