Sports TV & Promoter – Development of Entrepreneurship in Sport

Arjun J chaudhuri

Sports Television and Sports Promoters have played a vital part in creating and sustaining the Advertising & Promotional [A&P] Value of Sport, especially in the United States of America, which has pioneered commercialism in sports play and sports broadcasting, by combining onsite and offsite music, arts, and sports broadcasting into an Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, better known as ESPN, established in 1980, and now that serves as a template for initiating and financing commercial enterprises for sports promoters and sports broadcasters in India. Before we fully understand how, why, and who of sports administration, and entrepreneurship of sport in India, it is important to look back at the origins of this development.To understand the revenue model of advertising in sport, following  case studies will be very important.

Case study 1 - PETER VICTOR UEBERROTH [1937-1988, as sports promoter]

Peter Victor Ueberroth, born in 1937, was an American sports administrator and entrepreneur, whose success with his first travel firm, Transportation Consultants International, enabled him to buy other travel firms and form First Travel Corporation.

In the early 1980s PV Ueberroth's business and management skills brought him to the attention of the Los Angeles Olympic Organising Committee, of which he became President and Managing Director. He sold First Travel Corporation to devote himself to the management of the 1984 summer Olympics. By using existing sports facilities wherever possible, auctioning the T.V.rights to the 1984 summer Olympic Games, soliciting corporate  sponsership, and extensively recruiting volunteers, PV Ueberroth rendered the 1984 Summer Olympic Games profitable despite a boycott by many Soviet-bloc nations.

In March 1984 PV Ueberroth was unanimously elected to a five-year term as the sixth commissioner of Major League Baseball [MLB]. When he took office in October 1984 he pledged to ensure MLB's financial stability. He averted both an umpires' strike during the 1984 playoffs and a players' strike during the 1985 season. He negotiated settlements between several television stations to limit the stations broadcasts in order to avoid saturating the market. In 1988 he resigned in order to return to private life.

CASE STUDY 2 - ROONE PINCKNEY ARLEDGE, Jr., Sports TV Producer [1931-2002]

Roone Pinckney Arledge, Jr., was an American television executive, credited with raising the Sports and News Divisions of the American Broadcasting Company [ABC] from relative obscurity to dominant positions in the industry. He was the first person to be president of two major network divisions at the same time.

From 1953 to 1954 he served in the United States Army, where he began his broadcasting career by producing radio programs. In the late 1950s he worked for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) producing various live television programs, but his career began to soar in 1960 when he joined the then-struggling ABC network as a Sports producer. At ABC he created the highly successful series Wide World of Sports (1961- ). The innovative production techniques he introduced in this series set a new standards for televised sporting events. After being named President of ABC SPORTS in 1968, RP Arledge secured the broadcasting rights to the 1968 Summer Olympic  that year. The quality of ABC’s coverage of the Olympics under his direction helped generate unprecedented popularity in the United States for the event. Even more important to ABC’s growing popularity was RP Arledge’s decision to broadcast National Football League [NFL] games on monday nights during prime t.v. viewing hours. Monday Night Football (1970- ) became one of television’s highest-rated shows.

As a result of skillful broadcasting of live events and the discerning sense of presentation, backed by far-thinking sports administrators using sports promotion techniques, by optimally utilizing existing resources to make sporting events, profitable, the risk-taking and innovation, of administrators and promoters, alike, has led to the financial stability of Sports Properties, that has been created by sports administrators, and sports promoters, and sold to sports entrepreneurs, who have further initiated, and financed new commercial ventures, all of which has led to the generation of employment and income in the sports industry.