Broadcasting the World Cup: a multinational comparative analysis broadcast quality in the 2014 World Cup

Abstract

Mega sporting events such as FIFA’s quadrennial World Cup are among the few telecasts capable of generating large nationwide and worldwide numbers. The 2014 World Cup garnered over one billion estimated viewers, and events such as this represent important elements of the sports media landscape, providing media benchmarks in journalism as well as commercialism. This study evaluates telecasts from four different countries during the 2014 World Cup, examining these telecasts through the lens of broadcast quality, as explored in earlier studies of such telecasts. Scholars examined telecasts originating in Germany, Ghana, Portugal, and the United States, comparing a variety of elements within each broadcast via content analysis. Results indicated an increasing emphasis on pre-match coverage in telecasts, a growing importance of panel discussions and ‘expert’ commentary, and a corresponding loss of hard news and journalism. These findings appear to correspond with the research of Turner, who observed increased focus on periphery and contextual items in a longitudinal analysis of ESPN’s SportsCenter.

Notes

1. FIFA.com, ‘FIFA World Cup Group Stages’.

2. Resnikoff, ‘Brazil 2014 World Cup’.

3. Dassanayake, ‘One Billion People Set’.

4. Stelter, ‘As TV Ratings’.

5. Boi, Formel 1 als mediatisiertes Sportereignis, 10–40; GMM, ‘Formula One Suffering Global’.

6. Ahmed, ‘BBC Shifts Focus’.

7. Gerhard and Zubayr, ‘Die Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft 2014’, 448–4; Slater, ‘Olympics and World Cup’.

8. Haynes and Boyle, ‘The FIFA World Cup’, 87.

9. Horky, ‘Examining the Structures’.

10. Ibid., 221.

11. Weischenberg, ‘Medienqualitäten’.

12. Hillve et al., ‘Aspects of Quality in TV’, 294–5.

13. Kolb, Vielfalt im Fernsehen.

14. Belsey and Chadwick, ‘Ethics as a vehicle’, 462.

15. See e.g. Barnfield, ‘Soccer, Broadcasting, and Narrative’, 328–30; Gruneau, ‘Making Spectacle’, 138–44; Rowe, ‘Screening the Action’, 145–66; Stoddard, ‘Sport, Television, Interpretation’, 80–5; Whannel, ‘Sport on Television’, 87–103.

16. English, ‘The Same Old Stories’.

17. See note 8 above.

18. Turner, ‘This is SportsCenter’.

19. Ibid., 63.

20. Halliday, ‘Dinosaurs Approaching Extinction’, 185.

21. See note 8 above.

22. See note 8 above.

23. For those unfamiliar with World Cup play, 32 teams qualify for the tournament, and are placed into eight even groups. One team in each group is ‘seeded’, or protected from being placed in the other groups. These seedings are generally decided by a coefficient which determines the overall quality of teams which have qualified for the tournament. For Group G, Germany was the seeded team. The other teams are placed in the group based upon their home geographical region.

24. All of the coded TV stations owned the complete broadcasting rights to telecast the games live, so we did not focus on the different situation of broadcasting rights in that countries. For analysis of broadcasting rights see Evens and Lefever, ‘Watching the Football Game’.

25. See note 8 above.

26. See note 8 above.

27. Boyle, Sports Journalism. Context and Issues, 74.

28. Horky, ‘Examining the Structures’, 230.

29. See note 17 above.

30. Hutcherson, ‘Soccer’s Knowledge Gap’.

31. Wolfley, ‘ESPN Betting on U.S. Soccer Fans’.