Across the globe we are seeing sports shorten the length of games or reduce the number of players per side to try and tap into a youth market that they claim has shorter attention spans. Many of these sports are suffering as a result of diminishing numbers of fans coming to watch games live, and it is believed that these new versions will help pull in new fans. The Big Bash League lends strength to that argument.
Yet apart from looking at the price of tickets and sending out questionnaires asking fans about their game day experience how many have really analysed the problem to find out when this decline started and why it has continued?
There are many old-school sports fans who have become infuriated that every single sporting event is now accompanied by music, when a goal/try/touchdown is scored. The inane chatter from on-field announcers who at times are inaudible – which is a relief – or talk as if communicating with kindergarten attendees.
In Gideon Haigh’s book “Stroke of Genius” he starts by pointing out that “Cricket was devised to be played, not watched.” How true is that statement of most sports? It is a point worth remembering.
Certainly most who have played a sport then develop an interest in watching those who excel, who play the game at the highest level. There are of course some who have no such interest, and simply play for the sheer enjoyment of playing.
In the scheme of things it is worth putting sport in perspective. Despite the massive industry it has become on a world scale, and even a national scale, most contests are in the scheme of things trivial. However sport does have a place in society. It allows us to dream, it can show us unbelievable feats of heroism, it can inspire us to believe that we as individuals can overcome the odds. It can give us moments of delirium as well as moments of deep despair. As a child it teaches you that sometimes life is not fair, as well as how to be a humble winner and a good loser. It teaches you how to be a part of a team, whether you like being part of a team or if individual challenges are more your thing.
So many sports have now become dependent on television for revenue. So many television stations now see sport as one of the best avenues to guarantee eyeballs on their station, which in turn means on their advertisers. Hosting certain major events also guarantees an increase in subscriptions if you opt for pay TV.
Of course if you are going to pay millions of dollars for a sporting event, to recoup that money you must invest in your production and ensure that you give the viewers an experience that makes them want to come back. Some recently televised events have certainly had the opposite impact with viewers.
It is a very simplistic view to say that Television has stopped people going to watch live sport. Sure there are some sports where it is in fact better to watch on television as the action is so fast or over such a great distance, F1 is one such example. However, nothing beats being at a game and seeing the action unfold before your eyes. To be able to see a run that the viewers at home will not see as it is out of shot, and see that run result in a goal or a try. To see a captain shift a field placing in cricket, and the batsman then play the ball straight to that fielder. These are experiences that you can only have at a live game.
Television gives us so much. It gives us instant replays from a myriad of angles. It takes us up close and personal to the action, so close we can almost feel the players breathing, we can in many cases now even hear their conversations on the pitch. Sometimes regrettably we hear things we really shouldn’t, and have no right to hear.
Thanks to television a whole new lexicon has been created with stump-cam, umpire-cam, Snicko, Hotspot, and Hawkeye etcetera.
As Gideon Haigh wrote in relation to all these developments which add to our viewing experience the chief purpose of these innovations “is to counteract the obstacles that speed and distance place in the way of watching, interpreting and adjudicating cricket.” Does this not apply to other sports as well?
Not only can we experience so many facets of a game thanks to the evolution of television, but with the emergence of the big screens at all modern sporting venues, fans can afford to go to the bar and stay there. They can go and get a pie halfway through the first half, because they won’t miss the action as invariably a replay will pop up on the screen.
So rather than it being the fans having a shorter attention span it is in fact that the fans are no longer required to watch sport the way they used to. They no longer have to watch every second of play as they used to. Before all this technology you did not want to take your eyes off the field of play as you did not want to miss a goal, a catch, or a try that would be talked about for years.
Each game is part of an evolving narrative. The game itself and its context in relation to the current competition, as well as past encounters, and individual rivalries. These are the things that make sport so enticing and intriguing, and keep us coming back for more. Most fans don’t care about the new data created on players such as how many “assists” they had. It is about the collective, midfielders and wingers are supposed to create opportunities for forwards to score. Fans know whether a striker is fluffing those opportunities or being denied by great goalkeeping. It is as if these statistics have been created again to try and be a hook to keep fans attention.
What is more important is the story unfolding on the pitch, in the history of the two combatants, and in the competition that is being played. Has television diverted our attention from the rawness of sport, the basic tussle between two teams?
Or is the real problem quite simple, we have forgotten how to watch live sport?
Is this maybe why the stadia are not as full as they used to be? The fact that fans no longer have to watch every second of the match, that several thousand people are no longer all locked into that one second of time, invested in it, sharing it. Is this why the live sport experience has lost its appeal?
Sure we all lead busier lives, and the cost of attending has gone up. In some cases clubs no longer have the link to the community that they used to have, but has the whole game day experience changed the way we watch sport.
In American football a 15 minute quarter lasts about an hour. In that time there is so much entertainment going on around the game it is easy to be distracted from the actual sport. Has the rest of the sporting world gone down this path hoping to mirror the success the Americans have had with offering a “complete entertainment package?”
Do some sports need to rein it back, and once again teach fans and followers the art of watching a game? Sitting in the stands and riding that wave of emotions as the game ebbs and flows. Of watching and not wanting to take your eyes of the action for a moment. Of paying attention.
Is the modern day phenomenon that inability to pay attention, to stay focussed on a game for its entirety? Have we lost the ability to watch sport without the use of replays, music and other entertainment?
Have we forgotten how to watch live sport?
