Sport Aid is another national sporting group which focuses on high performance sport. They provide grants for talented individuals to help with costs of training, travel or equipment; they range from £250-500. Every year Sport Aid support 2500 youngsters and have made £20million available. There are no figures to tell us the proportion of successful grant applications for each sport, but the scheme has definitely helped both hockey and football players.
NGB’s are another source of aid. England Hockey the hockey NGB has undergone some changes due to some significant financial problems. This says something about the state of hockey, if there’s no money at the centre of the sport, there’s nothing to distribute and drive the game forward. The former EHA is paying back the ‘Stewart Newton’ loan that kept them operating. But this doesn’t leave much revenue to carry out improvements in the set up. There are no such troubles at the FA. They are worth over £150million in cash in hand. Over the last three years £110million has been spent by the FA on improving facilities alone. These figures are staggering but just reflect the saleability of football. It’s hard to imagine any other sport thriving in this modern world without a very commercial output.
With all this support football gets to encourage people to take up the sport, hockey teams still struggle. The biggest chunk of money comes from the plays pockets in match fees and membership fees, clubs are obviously not a profit making organisation, yet its extremely expensive to play. At my local club it will cost £80 in annual membership plus £11 a week for match fees to cover pitch hire cost, league registration and providing food after the game for the travelling team. Another example that highlights this point is; to enter a school hockey team into the county tournament the school has to pay yet any football team wanting to enter their respective tournament don’t have to paid and are give freebies from the FA, such as branded bibs and water bottles, all this is to increase the participation.
Task 3 Organisation and Funding at Elite level
As the competition standard increases and becomes national, the organisation running and looking after it must to be national. In both football and hockey most of the elite and international side of things is dealt with by the NGB. Although these are similarities there’s definitely no similarity in the level of interest at professional level. Football national leagues are completely professional due to the commercialisation of the game and its huge spectator appeal. In both hockey and football teams filter through from the county leagues to regional and onto national leagues. The lowest national football league is the conference but even in this league plays earn a wage, clubs can afford it with revenue from ticket sales, prize money from competitions like the FA cup, merchandise and sponsorship. As we look further up the divisions money from all these things is multiplied. In addition TV and media coverage is a big deal at this level, TV contracts for match rights are worth millions, the last Sky contract from 97-01 with the FA Barclaycard premiership was in the region of £650 million. Comparing this with the same level in hockey, teams still struggle for financial support, a little money is made from supporters at the game but theres not enough interest in the sport to charge for entry into games. For some national league clubs to survive players are still asked for membership fees this would be unheard of in premiership football.
I’ve talked a little about the Premier league and funding available here, but now I’m going to look at the clubs in more detail. Records show that between them in 2002 the 20 clubs made in excess of £1billion income.
From this table we can see that there big amounts of money changing hands but not vast amount of profits.
Football is seen as the ‘peoples game’ this means success is craved for the national team but also due to the mass media coverage of the sport there’s demands for an excellent grassroots set up by a large majority of the population. The nation wants football, which brings money from all different areas; both public and private investment is available. To an entrepreneur football is big business. A good example of this is the take over of Chelsea by the millionaire and already successful business man Roman Abraovich. The huge popularity of the sport and now in the era of commercialisation means there’s a massive audience for advertisement. If you look at the professional game these sponsorship everywhere, every team has a kit sponsor, all the leagues are sponsored (the FA Barclaycard Premiership, the coco-cola championship) even the players are sponsored. Sponsorship in hockey injects much needed money into the set up but it this is tiny amounts in comparison with football, due to football attracting a much wider audience. From 2000-03 the English Hockey League (EHL) was sponsored by ‘Harrold UK’ for £35,000 this was readily accepted by England Hockey as it is a large sum of money for the game.
Task 4
The press and media have been an important aspect of Britain’s sports culture for a long time. In the 1930’s one in six pages of the Sunday papers were devoted to sport and in 1995 a staggering 46% of the ‘Daily Mirror’ was sport orientated. But in the mid 1950’s another form of sporting media arose, that offered something newspapers couldn’t; live action. This was of course television. Even at this point in time football dominated coverage. Major event such as the FA cup final and the world cup final were special and so broadcasted live, with highlights for other matches being included in sports news. The media network has evolved rapidly. With the introduction of satellite and cable it’s now possible to receive channels that are dedicated entirely to football and generate twenty four hour viewing. The audience is so big the FA even has partners overseas that work with the company with the televising rights to distribute footage globally. There is no hockey channel, even on sports channels such as ‘Sky Sports’ and ‘Eurosport’ it’s rarely even mentioned in news bulletins and almost unheard of for a match to be televised.
Football on the contrary is fighting off competition for media attention. Big commercial companies like ‘Sky’ have the revenue to buy the rights to certain events for example the Premiership, these deals are so significant; they represent the major part of the FA’s income. Due to the fierce market and the time it takes up in the schedule football on terrestrial TV is becoming a unusual, live football that is. But to meet the demand of the viewing public a new kind of show has emerged, where the focus is not just on the reporting of matches and results but on the analysis. One example of this would be ‘Football Focus’ on the ‘BBC’ this is an hour programme, with a panel of experts who discuss current issues; they cover struggling managers to the state of the national team.
It could be said that this in this type of format the focus has shifted from the team to the individual. This is the route the newspapers have also had to take, this alternative view secure an audience because it takes them out of competition with live coverage. They are trying to provide in-depth analysis and interviews, in the case of the broadsheets. Some time ago it would have been unlike that football would have played much part inside a broadsheet. This would have been mainly due the class system and footballs label as the working class game, but now such is the fashoinability of football its enjoyed by everyone, and therefore is provide for in the broadsheets. In the case of the tabloids they look for the behind-the-scenes story. It is this approach that creates the personalities in sport, especially in football which is really only down to the sheer amount of exposure to the public; stars are constantly in the press. If I was to ask a member of the public to name one elite hockey player it’s extremely unlike they would be able to do so because it’s quite possible to go a year without one hockey story in the national press.
One way people can access hockey news is through magazines like the world hockey magazine and Hockey Sport. But the main difference between these and football magazines, besides being fewer in number and in audience they are produce by governing bodies. This doesn’t always make for the best or most interesting reading. There are hundreds of examples of football magazines covering all different aspects of the sport; grassroots, coaching, development, specific teams and international competitions. Ten years ago there were no genuine football magazines for adults; they were only produced for the children’s market. But now with the relatively new idea of a ‘male’ magazine football coverage in print has increased. The idea of this magazines is to clump together all the stereotypical male interests into one magazine, this will included football, cars, women etc.
In addition to print, television another source of sporting media is radio. The main stations are ‘Talk sport’ and ‘BBC Five Live’. ‘Five Lives’ slogan is “the home of live sport” and this is the feature of these stations, providing live commentary and report results; the old fashioned role of the media. Football is the core sport for most sports radio broadcasting. ‘Five Live’ for example has live commentary almost every night of the week. Here just as with the newspapers there is little mention of hockey, barring outrageous situations or stories. The majority of other radio stations air news and sport bulletins. If we look at BBC radio one the larger proportion of their sports stories are football related, this is true of most station; sport is increasingly becoming football.
With the great advances in technology there are more and more ways to access sport news. The internet has thousands of websites that offer football results, fixtures, statistics and facts. Using a search engine on the internet with football in the UK as the specification over 7 million sites are retrieved. In comparison if we do the same thing for hockey there a mere 1 million results and its also possible a significant number of these are orientated around ice hockey. The technology is such now that its possible to view matches over a broadband connection, this is a new idea but there are already companies set up to provide the service, ‘the-football.com’ are striving to make video or live broadcast on demand of your favourite team anywhere in the world possible.
Another plan that had the potential to revolutionise football further was the media buying into clubs or in fact taking them over. In 1999 the satellite operator ‘BSkyB’ attempted to take over Man United Football Club with a bid worth over £600 million. This offer was blocked by the government is it was deemed to have the to potential to corrupt the sport. But in the future it’s not unlikely that more deals like this could be offered, it’s a question of how long the sport can withstand this pressure.
The AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi has a vision for an extensive media network he said “One day coverage of football will be so wide-ranging that we will have to let the fans into the stadium free of charge.”
Task 5
Sports coverage used to be restricted in its audience size, usually limited to those present. But this was before mass media, there problem anymore, its possible to broadcast a sporting event to practically anyone in the world using television, radio or digital media using the internet. But to make it worth while for the media companies, there has to be a wide audience and interest in the sport, hockey meets its problem here, with no great following there no real demand for regular coverage.
Limited exposure in the media means there’s no interested generated, so the participation at grassroots levels starts to decline with no new players, this is a vicious circle and some people would argue; means hockey is a dying sport. The hours of coverage on terrestrial and satellite of hockey are not available but probably would not exceed more than 10 hours per year; the large majority of this coverage would be of major events such as the Olympics. Hockey has been an Olympic sport for over 30 years, in the Athens 2002 games the BBC scheduled highlights of all the Great Britain matches this was however only the men’s team as the women’s team didn’t make it through to the final (which must say something about the state of the game in England). Coverage of major events can have a huge effect on participation numbers at grassroots level, the fluctuation is sometimes temporary for example during Wimbledon the tennis industry sees a rise in sales of equipment, membership for clubs and hiring of facilities, but this generally doesn’t last through the winter. But some changes are more permanent such as the increased popularity of rugby since the Rugby World Cup in 2000; nearly every game was covered on terrestrial television, this created awareness and the success of the team inspired people which all lead to a rise in participation that has lasted.
Football as we know has an extremely high participation level and this interest also extends to spectating. This interest ensures endless amounts of coverage, it also means there must be enough competition to support the demand for top class football; there’s the premiership, FA cup, league cup, champions league, UEFA cup and then there’s all the foreign leagues and internationals. Football is heading towards 24/7 coverage. Take Saturday for example, first up in the morning are previews of all the weekend games and general stories in programmes like; ‘Soccer A.M’, ‘football focus’ and ‘On the Ball’. Then most matches are shown on satellite TV either on subscription or on a pay per view basis. After this we have final scores and round up’s, before the highlights are show later on in the evening. This is just on one day!
It’s hard to find an exact figure for how many hours of football are broadcasted in total, but on ‘Sky Sports’ alone since its launch in 1993, the channel has broadcast over 2,000 live football matches, including more than 600 live Premier League matches and over 100 internationals this is over 4,000 hours of live football, this doesn’t include all the news and analysis shows. Football is so popular there are fights over broadcasting rights TV companies have to pay for sole rights of coverage; these battles involve large sums of money (see Fig 5.1). The rights are worth this much because this is would the largest majority of views want. One match can attract millions of viewer; the match between Man United and Arsenal in the Premiership this season saw audience figures rise to a staggering 3.1 million.
If companies charge to watch matches, in pay per view situation it’s easy to see how this can be a profit making venture. But the average number of viewers per match has drop from 1.25 million in 2003 to 1.04 million this year, 2004. Experts think this could be down to the fact that coverage now is so extensive and technology is more advanced, its possible to watch highlights of a game just hours after the final whistle has gone. So arm chair followers can be more selective and avoid matches they see as boring or irrelevant, and simple catch the highlights.
Football has a much wider audience, the coverage of the game reaches nearly everyone in the UK, and it’s practically impossible not to have any contact with the sport. This means even people who have never played the game understand the rules and follow it in some way. In hockey however the audience profile is a lot more specific; the only people interested are people who have some connection to the game on a participation level.
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Task 6
Commercial sports are so dependant on the media for funding and exposure that obviously this relationship affects and influences decisions made about the game. In media coverage and even local spectating the viewer is affectively a consumer, and business sense says that to sell the product (the sport) the consumer needs to be given what they want.
Rules of the game
When spectating the want is for excitement and entertainment. To try and increase hockey’s appeal to spectators it was decided that the offside rule should be abolished. This was to make the game more flowing and prevent stoppages. This has probably also helped to increase the number of goals score, which creates thrilling matches. Another way ‘England Hockey’ trying to raise the number of goals was by saying that a goal could be scored from anywhere inside the 25 yard line as opposed to within the semicircle (‘D’). This was trailed at an U21’s national tournament, but it was deemed to dangerous and was not established. There haven’t been changes like this in football because since the industrial revolution when the game was taken in by the working class as ‘the people’s game’. This has meant that everything about the game has been embraced, so people don’t think it needs to be more exciting. But one rule was introduced fairly recently, the goalkeeper must not handle a deliberate back pass from a team mate unless it’s come off a head. This discourages time wasting by the keeper, and prevents the game from getting very fragmented where there are pause in the play.
Participation
Media coverage has another direct influence on sport, participation. As already discussed football is has extensive exposure in the media and this is a massive factor in the huge participation levels in the grassroots set-up. But it’s much easier to see the link between participation and media coverage in a sport like hockey, because the numbers are significantly less to begin with. For events like the Olympics sports aren’t usually televised are shown and written about for the duration of the event and national success could mean prolonged exposure of the sport in the press. Hockey saw an increase in participation after the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002 because it was held in Britain people went along and watched the television coverage as it was a rare occasion for them to see elite level sport, it didn’t matter that it was in an unfamiliar sport like hockey. The media coverage brought hockey to the attention of the population this can inspire people to go and pick up a stick and start playing themselves.
Conduct of players
The media attention on football creates celebrities out of the players. But one aspect of the fame is the scrutinising of there play on the pitch as well as off the pitch. Every tackle, every pass and especially any misconduct can be watched and replayed with the extensive footage and numerous cameras around the ground. This definitely puts pressure on the players, but ironically this can just add to the frustrations on the pitch which can lead to violence and antisocial behaviour. There are lots of example of players that have been picked up by technology for incidents that occur off the ball that the referee may not have spotted, it’s now possible for players to be disciplined after the match. This happen in Portugal at the finals Euro 2004, the Italian Francesco Totti spat at a player in match against Denmark, the incident was not pulled up, but was judged to be an offence after the game. He was punished, and banned from the proceeding three matches. This wouldn’t have happen without media interference.
The media builds up football so much and analyse every tiny detail that fans and people involved in the game lose all perspective, one manager and football fanatic Bill Shankly once said “Football isn’t live or death, it’s more important than that”, this puts enormous pressure put on the players, every minute of each game is important and worth money to someone, I think this is why diving has become an issue. One free kick could win a game, so players look for it; to try and combat a rule was brought in, that when a play goes down under a challenge the players must either be awarded a free kick or be caution by a yellow card for diving.
Event Programming
This is where football sees its biggest influence from the media. In the past Saturdays were sacred to football fans, as this was when all the action took place. But no longer, the games are shuffled around and scheduled to suit television companies wishing to show the as many games as possible live. The clubs and leagues obliged because of the money and exposure involved. Games are scheduled right through the week, premiership games spread out:
- Saturday – League games
- Sunday – More league games
- Monday – More league games, at least one premiership game
- Tuesday – Champion league, lower league games
- Wednesday - Champion league
- Thursday – UEFA Cup
With no audience for hockey there is no big relationship between the media and the sport. So scheduling happens around the most important people the players, as these are the biggest source of funding from match fees. Most people are free at the weekend; Sunday is a day of rest for lots of people so most games are played on a Saturday.
Task 7: Major Trends
The sports industry is continually changing and evolving. This is essential if it is to keep up with society, and to sustain interest in the game. I’ve look at my two chosen sports and pick out major issues trends that have affected the game over the last few decades.
Sadly the obvious trend seen in the game of hockey is that participation levels are falling. (See Fig. 7.1)
Taken from a report on national survey carried out by the Office of Population
Censuses and Surveys in 1994 and 1999 to investigate ‘Young People and Sport in England’ here are some general findings;
- Between 1994 and 1999 hockey experienced a 3% decline in the number of young people participating on a frequent basis in school lessons (20% v 17%)
- Hockey also experienced a slight decline in frequent participation out of school lessons, down from 6% in 1994 to 5% in 1999
I think the main problems are ones which have already been discussed; there is a severe lack of marketing, PR and general media interest. This means that there no huge interest been generated and less and less people therefore are taking up the sport. To try and keep the game alive new versions have been created. Zone hockey is an adaptation of the game it’s a 5 a-side game, can be played both outside on a hard surface, on a quarter of an artificial turf pitch, or inside a sports hall. The small-sided teams and adapted playing areas ensure a type of involvement in the game that will provide children with enjoyment and success. Girls and boys, both disabled or non-disabled can participate side by side in what is a high scoring, fast moving, fun game of hockey. The idea of the game is to make it easy to organize as it can played in lots of place and include lots of different groups of people; this should help to get big numbers playing the game. Indoor hockey is another small side game designed to be exciting and fast.
Football is already such a widely enjoyed sport, and there are no concerns with participation levels as they have continued to rise. But the escalation of the sport is partly down to the significant growth in women’s football (shown in the table below).
Overall it’s thought that the women’s game has seen a 53% increase in participation over the last three years. Kelly Simmons ‘Head of Football Development’ says “Girls and women's football is growing significantly year after year, averaging about 1,000 new affiliated girls and women's teams every year. It is now easily the number one female participation sport.” The portrayal of football as a male game has been ditched. There hasn’t been a huge amount of media attention. But it is increasing all the time; major championships are covered with reports in the news on sports channels, and important match like the women’s FA cup final are televised live. In the surrounding area there are several leagues; fixtures and results are reported in the local newspapers. There are plans to bring the women’s Euro 2005 to the UK, this will mean more exposure for the game, participation levels should be driven by this and are expected to continue rising.
It’s not just women’s football that is on the increase; even though the men’s game is already so well established participation levels are still increasing (fig 1.1 and 7.1). Some of the interest in grassroots football maybe driven by aspirations to become professional players. This is appealing with the prospect of fame and riches, over the last decade or so the sport has been transformed in the fashionable global phenomenon it is now. But before this the game was not particularly well paid even not so long ago when people like Mark Lawrenson and Alan Hanson were players, they had to get another job after their playing careers were over both opting to become TV pundits. These days the superstars like Beckham are earning in excess of £50k a week, plus millions of pounds in sponsorship deals, there’s definitely no need for them to look for work after the retire from playing.
The large sums of money that change hand in the world of football can give spectators the reason to sometimes expect more than is humanly possible. The media has played a part in this they hype up players so much they become, in our minds something more than just human they become detached. This then justifies ripping them down when they slip up. But in some case some fans think it also justifies violence, the expectation on the players to perform means if they fall short fans get frustrated, this is not helped by the amount they are paid as it gives rise to the argument “they’re getting paid a lot of money to perform they should perform every match”. The frustration amongst the fans can slip over into violence in the stands. The game has made huge efforts to rid the game of hooliganism, and to extend these efforts have been rewarded; matches are much more family friendly. Deterrents such as CCTV cameras have been fitted all round the stadiums with operation centres where the footage is constantly monitored; this centre is in direct contact with the emergency services and stewards in the ground. It’s also been made so that offenders can be banned from all matches including foreign games. England had made a name for itself in the football fraternity for hooliganism, so catching offenders and confiscating their passports has helped greatly in irradiating this reputation in international competitions.
Other recent campaigns have focused on other problem areas of the game. Like ‘Kick it out’ has help massively in getting rid of racism in football. The trend is a decreasing one, the English game used to be dominated by white players and the first black players were badly abused by the fans, but this is no longer such an issue, thanks to schemes and role models; there are now lots of black football stars. Some people say there’s still an element of racism, for example we still don’t see black or asian managers. But in the recent international friendly when England played Spain in Madrid there was some racist abuse directed at the black members of the English side from the Spanish Supporters, this showed how far the game has progress in England.
One trend seen in places like Britain, is that people are living longer this is creating an aging population. Thanks to advances in medicine and technology there are a lot more old people in Britain and a lot more active old people. So this has given rise to another group that sport must cater for.
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I’ve talked about how advances in technology have created an aging population but some of the developments have had a direct influence sport and how it’s played. In football it’s not had a huge impact on the game, but there have been a few alterations. The ball that professionals use nowadays is lighter than ever before, after detailed research into the flight of a football, and evidence that the older, heavier balls were actually causing damage to the players’ heads. Technology has also help to improve football boots; boots now have two types of studs for different weather and are made from lighter materials, to improve performance. The spectators experience is much improved, with slow motion replays and numerous camera angles, but this has also given rise to the debate: should technology be used to aid the referee to reach decisions? Some people think that decisions should be right if there is so much riding on them, others believe it would take away from the spirit of football.
Technology has helped to progress the game of hockey greatly. The majority of players now play with a composite stick, which incorporates different materials to reach a desire product with the prefect properties. The main substance used id carbon fibre; it’s strong but much lighter than wood. These new sticks provide more power from the same amount of energy, this has upped the speed of the game and the also made it easier for certain groups like children to play a better standard of hockey (see next page for some examples). The game is now played almost exclusively on Astroturf, an artificial surface either sand based of water based. The surface is flat and has much less resistance than grass so has helped to make play faster and more accurate. But there is a down side, it’s already evident that the impact running on astrotruf puts a crippling amount of pressure on the knee joint, so sadly it’s anticipated that there won’t be many older people continuing to play the game into their 40’s in years to come, because a lot of them will have knee problems.
The global success of football and the media portrayal has meant the public are constantly subjected to it. It now has a role in everyday life, affecting lots of things including the way we dress. Clothing that was originally designed for sports men and women. For example like trainers and tracksuits bottoms are now worn regularly as casual wear. This has created a multi billion pound industry, one source estimating spending on sports clothing at £2750million a year. It is a healthy industry because the sector of the market that buy for participation will look for quality rather than bargains. Although “spending grew by only 2%, with sports clothing and footwear taking slightly lower shares of the overall clothing and footwear markets in 2001 than in 1997” () this can be put down to the increasing popularity of demin and the non-sports wear look.
Bibliography
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: Football NGB
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: football foundation charity organisation set up to support grassroots football
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: Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research
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: media in the modern game
