5 OLYMPICS AS SITCOM

BOX 6.5 OLYMPICS AS SITCOM

Certain steps were taken to liven up the games during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. For example, during the baseball games, every foul ball (even the grounders) was accompanied by sound effects of breaking glass. Beach volleyball had its own comic host, “Lifeguard Dave, ” who worked the crowd like a stand-up comedian. Roy Slaven and

H.G. Nelson, late-night hosts of The Dream, ran Greco-Roman Olympic wrestling coverage to a sound track of Barry White love songs and commentary pondering why large men would try to grope and mount each other. The show’s mascot “Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat” became so popular that Olympic athletes all wanted to pose with it, until the I.O.C. requested that they stop doing so. Does such coverage enhance or detract from the Olympics? (Luscombe, 2000)

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BOX 6.6

A CASE STUDY IN SPORTS MEDIA COVERAGE AND CULTURAL VALUES

How do national social and cultural values affect media coverage of sports and sports heroes? The answer may be more substantial than we realize. Consider the following comparison from Kottak (1990) of U.S. and Brazilian media coverage of their respective medal winners in the 1984 Olympics.

First, although Brazilian media overall gave less Olympic coverage to its own competitors than did the United States, there was also a much greater emphasis on team sports and victories by Brazilian media, whereas the U.S. media spent much more time on individual human interest stories of participants (e.g., skater Dan Jansen’s sister dying just before his 1988 Winter Games competition). In contrast, Brazilian swimming medalist Ricardo Prado was lauded by his media for his stellar performance but only in the context of much criticism of the team’s overall poor showing. Brazilian athletes were blamed by their media for poorer than expected performance, whereas U.S. athletes were praised for fine attempts and empathized with for disappointing showings. The theme of the underdog triumphing was prominent in U.S. media, whoever the winner. Brazilian media gave scant coverage to their own runner Joaquim Cruz’s surprise gold medal, although U.S. media ran a human interest story on his rise from a humble upbringing in the slums to stardom. Pratfalls and slips were covered heavily in Brazilian media, typically in a humorous vein, not the heartbreak angle more common in U.S. Olympic coverage. Brazilian Olympic athletes reported being extremely worried about how the audience back home would judge their performance.

Why the difference? Kottak argued that, even though the United States in many ways embodies more competitive values than does Brazil, U.S. sports coverage is rife with the American cultural theme of the striving and success of the individual. The individual person and his or her efforts are celebrated and seldom criticized, even if the results are disappointing. Everyone has a chance, and even the lowliest individual can rise high through valiant individual effort. Brazilian media, on the other hand, reflect a more stratified and less mobile society where no one is expected to rise in the social hierarchy Thus, people do not see hard work as being efficacious in raising one’s social status, and it may even be seen as a threat.

Psychological Issues in Sports and Media

Why do people seek to consume sports media, and what is the nature of that

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consumption, but in other ways it is unique. On TV, only sports (and in a very different way, news) is live and unrehearsed with the outcome unknown. This is very different from the rather predictable, formulaic nature of most entertainment programming and advertising. In this section we examine several aspects of the sports media consumption experience, with the major emphasis being on the medium of television.

Sports Media Consumption as a Social Event. More often than for other TV programming, part of the reality of the experience of sports media consumption involves the presence of others (Rothenbuhler, 1988). Friends gather at someone’s home or patrons congregate in a bar to watch a big game. Often the game seems more enjoyable in a group than it would be watching alone, with the presence of others rooting for the same team somehow seeming more important than having coviewers while watching a movie, a sitcom, or the news (Wenner & Gantz, 1989). The expression of emotion, discussed later, may be part of the reason. Also, watching with a group partially re-creates the stadium situation of watching the event in a crowd.

One interesting aspect of the social reality of TV sports viewing is the eating and drinking that accompany the viewing. People eat and drink more watching sports than watching other events on TV, especially when viewing in groups, but the range of what they consume is fairly narrow. The food is most often junk food, snacks, or perhaps hot dogs, and the drink is typically soft drinks or beer. In short, we eat and drink the same sort of substances at home that we might consume if we were in attendance at the stadium. It seems somehow odd to have coffee and croissants while watching the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers or to savor a fine red wine while watching the heavyweight boxing championship fight. One increasingly thorny issue in regard to food and drink involves the advertising and promotion of alcohol at university athletic contests (see Box 6.7).

Sports is the type of television most often consumed in a social context. Who the others watching with you are and how much you enjoy the game help determine what the experience of viewing is like. For example, watching a sporting event alone, with a group, or with one’s family or significant other leads to different uses and gratifications (Bonds-Raacke & Harris, 2004). Wenner and Gantz (1998) identified five levels of motivations for watching sports, in decreasing amount of emotional involvement. First is the fanship dimension, focusing on the thrill of victory and identifying strongly with the players. Second, the learning dimension involves acquiring information about the game and the players. Third, the release dimension involves “letting off steam,” relaxing, and eating and drinking. Fourth, companionship involves watching to be in the company of others who are watching; such motivations are especially important in the case of family or

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significant others. Finally, the filler dimension, the least emotionally involving, involves watching to pass the time or because one is bored.