The ever-changing landscape of sports media

By Brett Shweky/Sports Director

 

The sports media industry has seen rapid change in the way its audience receives news. Media outlets have altered the way they provide information and are trending toward on-the-go content.

Students at the University are beginning to shift toward content that are social media friendly and also allows them to stay current with their favorite sports teams – and all at their fingertips.

Junior Jose Marchese, majoring in communication arts, is an active sports fan and watches most games through live-streaming apps such as WatchESPN.

“To be honest, I watch most of my favorite teams through my phone or through my laptop,” said Marchese. “The WatchESPN app allows me to live-stream most of my favorite teams while they’re playing and it also sends me notifications when breaking news is released. I also have Bleacher Report and the NBA app to read analysis and opinions from certain sports writers on players and games.”

Live streaming has become a popular choice for people on-the-go, and has also become an innovative option for many sporting leagues.

In 2016, the National Football League decided to broadcast their Thursday Night Football games through Twitter and met with success.

For this season, Amazon acquired the rights to stream ten NFL games, following the company’s $50 million bid to earn the rights. The deal is almost five times as much as Twitter’s previous deal, which was around $10 million.

In addition, other media outlets such as Facebook and YouTube have also been trying to acquire rights to broadcast live games for the NFL.

Like most students, Michael Fumero prefers to use social media to stay updated with his favorite sports teams, however, he also enjoys the radio as an alternative source for his insight on sports.

“Most of the time I just get my information from different social media accounts like Twitter and Facebook, but there are some occasions where I like to listen to sports shows on the radio,” said the junior majoring in communication arts. “I like listening to the Big O show on 560 WQAM and I also listen to 790 The Ticket whenever they have an interesting guest on.”

Sports radio has seen a rather significant decline in listeners since the early 2000’s and its numbers support this claim. From 2008, the percentage of Americans who do not own a radio has increased from 4 percent to 21 percent, according to a survey done by rainnews.com. Rainnews.com offers audiences news on online radio and differnent events.

When narrowing it down to the age groups between 18 to 34, the non-ownership of a radio is 32 percent.

Steven Blandon prefers to use social media to receive up-to-date information on his favorite sports teams and believes social media brings fans from the same and different teams together.

“I’m constantly on Twitter and Instagram, so most of the time I get my sporting news from those sources,” said the communication arts junior. “I follow pages like ESPN and NFL Live to get news about my favorite teams, and I also engage with other fans discussing different sporting events that are taking place.”

The amount of worldwide social media users has reached 1.96 billion people, according to estimates made by statista.com. The number is only expected to increase and could potentially reach 2.5 million users by 2018.

With the rapid growth of social media and the significant increase of its users from year-to-year, trends show that news outlets continue to provide content that appeals to an ever-growing social media driven society.