Why Sports?

Sports journalism is an extraordinarily active field, with enormous time, people and resources devoted to covering and analyzing sports at amateur and professional levels. To some people outside the field of sports media, putting so much into the coverage of what is at face value an entertainment product may seem strange. People who do not identify as sports fans may see sports as "just a game" and deny that it has any broader significance. At a time of rising social and political awareness, sports can seem trivial by comparison. People who are in sports media understand this perspective, and many have pondered the meaning of their work in comparison to other fields and when put up against the rest of the world. However, widespread sports coverage is in high demand, as sports are an extremely popular form of entertainment worldwide. The high amount of critical and journalistic attention devoted to sports is a logical outcome of the way being a fan of sports can affect an individual. Through personal interviews and an academic exploration of sports sociology, this project endeavors to describe and reflect on why there is so much attention devoted to sports. First, by hearing from sports journalism students and professionals working in sports, this project shows how people working in sports feel their work has significance. Second by considering sports in many different ways, including as an art form and a vehicle of social change, this project demonstrates how sports is comparable to other fields that have extensive media coverage and a large personal following. By examining both an anecdotal and academic perspective on sports media, the factors behind its large presence and growth become very clear.