The Influence of Media on Sport

The Influence of Media on Sport

Media can have a large influence on all sport organisations and athletes. To begin with there is a phrase known as 'Mass Media' this is where the owner of the content can decide what is shown and can censor certain information. [WiseGeek, 2011]. This is something that the public will not be able to change and there are no laws to prevent them from doing this, however it has started to give the media a more sinister public image. Magazines can actually create a false story and will not be breaking the law as there are no regulations preventing them from doing so, as it has been seen in the past, for example with David Beckham accused of cheating on his wife in 2007. After the incident majority of people believed that this story was false, and the woman saying she had been with David was simply after money. "Sadly we live in a world where a magazine can print lies and believe they can get away with it," adds the rep. "We are taking legal action against the magazine." [Dailynews, 2010]

However a court of law lead to no legal charges except for the woman to keep a distance of 10miles away from the Beckham's. Due to this upset from the media going with this woman's story it affected David's career on the short term. He missed several training exercises and lost his concentration in football.

So the media had entered into the Beckham's personal family life which had a large affect on David, which was not shown by his team mates but by his fans however overtime the story was long forgotten about. This is only a small example of the power of media, but it simply shows that one person can go into magazine company and create a story which could have a large impact on a professional athlete's career.

A recent story which has come to light which has actually destroyed an Athletes career is Tiger Woods. He was caught cheating on his wife, because of this he was giving out a bad image which lead to his contracts with EASports and Gatorade being terminated. [BBC, 2010] this has left Tiger with large opportunity costs as he missed out on over 12million pounds with his sponsors to go and sleep with countless women instead. There can be two sides to this story, one side is that the media crushed Tiger Wood's career and family, the other side is that because of the Media they helped his wife to uncover the truth and claim majority of the benefits off Tiger such as keeping their children and she was able to move on in quiet. Some people think that 'he deserved what was coming to him.' However should the media of gotten involved with Tiger Wood's personal life in the first place?

There are not all bad points about the media though, a popular phrase well-known is 'The press has the power to make or break a person' for example if it was not for the media David Beckham would not be in the position he is today which is, he has won the 'Life time achievement award', increased the popularity of football in America and done a lot of charity work. Many people worldwide look up to him, additionally if it was not for the media