It seems that every time I turn on the television, sportscasters are there to declare the latest “breaking” news. The media loves a good story, and when it comes to sports, they’ll go to great lengths to ensure that the latest winner or loser of a game gets the biggest headlines. Coverage of sports is crucial to ensuring that Americans remain excited about their country’s finest athletic events. As a result, many of the games that are broadcast on television become known as drawing; teams with high hopes of surprising their opponents go on to lose by large margins, thus setting up huge upset possibilities for other teams. The general public becomes excited about the possibility of those teams, but nobody is really sure how to profit from them.
For example, when NASCAR races were canceled due to safety concerns, it caused a major surge in interest in the stock car racing scene. There were a lot of people who attended races, and they bought racing shirts, helmets, posters, and T-shirts. But many of those fans became hopeless bandwagon followers – they soon got tired of following the races and betting on the favorites because they weren’t winning. They were starting to feel like they were missing out on something, but the NASCAR races were still being held.
That’s not the only scenario where a sport has been exploited by the media. One of the most widely watched shows on television deals with professional wrestling. Professional wrestlers are famous for their outlandish costumes, dramatic entrances, and match-changing entrances (especially when they get angry). Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of hate toward professional wrestlers, which can translate into sales for the sport’s product. When baseball fans were upset about steroids being banned, the sport had even more sponsors looking to cash in on the tension. A match can mean big money if it’s covered by several different networks, so a company could put a wrestler with a bad reputation on their payroll, with the hope that he would lose his fans in order to build interest in their product.
Sportscasters often take advantage of their position as expert, unbiased commentators, which is why many people get turned off when they see sportscasters commentating sporting events. But there’s no need to hate on the game; it’s hard enough being a fan of a given sport without trying to get people to root for your team or against them. If you’re interested in sports reporting, then you’ll likely find a job in this field, especially because the Internet allows you to network with other reporters and sportscasters from around the country or world. You can help develop new stories by finding minor leagues in your area and talking to coaches and players. You may be able to get a scoop before other sports writers get the same story, and you can help get the word out about a terrible trend in a sport. You can even get your sportscasters jobs scooping up news from anywhere around the globe, if you have access to video.
If you love sports, then chances are that you have favorite teams and players, and maybe even favorite games. Many fans enjoy following their favorite teams through ups and downs, playoffs and seasons, and so the idea of covering your favorite teams and players is an attractive one for many sportscasters. However, it can also be hard work, since many sportscasters only do sports reporting for a few hours a week, if they even make time to fit the rest into their hectic schedules. For those who can fit it in, it can be a very lucrative and satisfying career choice.
The great thing about the coverage is that it allows you to become intimately familiar with your favorite teams and players, so you can write about how they are doing, whether they are winning, losing, and whether anything funny is taking place. You can follow your favorite teams and players through every moment of their regular season or playoffs and get behind the scenes so that you can experience everything that the fans feel while watching their team play. Even if you only cover a few regular season games, it will be worth it to you because you can really connect to your sport and the people who love it.