TV

            As sport becomes an ever-more popular entertainment medium for TV and radio broadcasters, sponsorship becomes an ever more popular way for large corporations to market themselves: it is a very effective way of associating their brand or identity with the values represented by a particular sport. As professional sport becomes increasingly driven by money (players demanding high wages, equipment needing to be the latest technological advance) then sponsors seem to be the only way to provide the cash necessary to keep the sport running to the standards that TV viewers demand. This presents issues for media coverage of sports, because, inevitably, covering the sport means covering the sponsor. It is almost impossible to watch any major sporting event without being subjected to corporate logos, both at the track/pitch and as part of the TV images. Sponsorship is one way for corporations/brands to reach millions of eyeballs worldwide via a single channel of communication and many companies allocate huge sums of money to their sponsorship budgets. The media are seen as playing a key role in attracting sports sponsorship, and a sport that has little media coverage has little hope of sponsorship. Therefore, we are entering a situation where, increasingly, sports are dependent on the media for their survival.