2011 will be known as the year I stopped looking at the ESPN homepage for anything interesting. Seems to me like we had the Superbowl followed by a few months of analyzing the Superbowl and then talking about next year's Superbowl followed by draft speculation. Then came various camps and scouting reports before the ever-so-wondrous Draft. Then came all the negotiations and that took up more of our time and just when it seems we may get one football-less week - BAM. Here's pre-season and there goes any chance of another sport making the homepage.
Now, this may peg me as a football hater - I'm not. I actually enjoy watching the games (not in a bar) and analyzing players and plays. I especially enjoy the water cooler conversations and smack talk. But I have to beg the question, why do we require fair and balanced reporting from our regular news programming but do not demand more from our sports coverage?
There is the ancient arguement of the almighty dollar. Yes. Admittedly, there is a huge football following and the media machine has been milking it for a long time. But, I counter with the following - where is the growth opportunity in football? There are some European teams, however they are not "drinking the Kool-Aid" so to speak. And China? Japan? The cultural norms of these countries do not lend themselves to the sport of football. So, there is clearly a large portion of the world that is not going to easily buy into the football machine. So, where will the money be in the future?
Triathlon. This is one of the largest growing sports in the country(15-20% annual growth for 10yrs) and globally popular, according to USA Triathlon. As far as dollars are concerned, the average income for a US triathlete is in the neighborhood of $126k/yr. They have families and travel and spend money on sporting equipment - did I also mention that there is a huge following worldwide already? Why are we not televising and capitalizing on this? During the 2004 Olympics, the Women's Triathlon event was the third most-watched prime time show for the week of Aug. 22, 2004. The athletes are way better looking than the brutes behind the masks and not to mention, much better role-models for our children. In addition, with three disciplines being displayed in one broadcast, you triple your number of potential viewers. Swimmers, runners and cyclists are all potential viewers in addition to triathletes. That also triples the number of available sponsors while providing a great feature/benefit analysis to said sponsors.
So, there is clearly an argument that there are sports outside of football that do exist in the world. The question is how do we get some airtime love for triathlon - outside of the Universal Sports Channel available only on DirectTV(#lame)? Normally, I would say it comes down to the viewers since we have all the money. However, it is the Nielsen Rating that rule the reporting - but how can you report watching something if it is not on the air to watch?
Alas, I do not have the answer. A bit anticlimactic, admittedly, but I'm hoping someone out there may know a way - I may suggest a bombarding of the ESPN facebook/twitter accounts of requests to broadcast ITU and Ironman events. Any thoughts? Keep in mind, we're doing it for ESPN's own good. It's all about the growth - football has been shoved down our throats for too long. I feel like a duck being prepped for foie gras - don't you?
No comments:
Post a Comment