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The chapter begins by noting the role of Scottish sport in the nation, and the particular tendencies of Scottish sports coverage in the media. The economic costs of new sports developments and their effects on Scottish sports coverage are observed. The reaction of Scottish sports administrators to new developments in the 1990s are recorded, as are the new relationships between the Scottish media and sport. The diminishing quantity of Scottish sport on TV besides the large quantities of sport generally is discussed, as is the small economic benefit of TV football to the SPL; and there is an analysis of the question of rights. Scottish sports radio is examined as are the ‘new communicative spaces’ for sport, including a consideration of fandom and new media. Though the Scottish element in some sports may fare better than others, the present effects on football, in particular, of current broadcast arrangements are damaging.

What are the implications of the digital age and new media for media-sport and the mediation of sport mega-events like the Olympics? In this chapter we focus on the internet ‘piracy’ problem and look into recent governmental policies and practices which aim to address and curb internet piracy in both the USA and the UK. The core of the chapter addresses problems of internet piracy in the field of media-sport and the related field of major sport-events like the Olympic Games, and also high profile and high value football matches. In relation to the Olympics it looks ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ approaches by the IOC to address the internet ‘piracy’ problem. Finally, the chapter addresses the current co-existence between television and the internet-based media in the context of the Olympics, and the possibilities for a new symbiosis in this area.

This chapter investigates some aspects of the speeding-up of sport and sports media in contemporary accelerated culture alongside a generalised rethinking of the sociology of modernity. In a 1990s book of essays entitled Sport and Postmodern Times Brian Pronger coined the term ‘post-sport’ when reviewing the transgression of the body in sport within queer theory. But the term ‘post-sport’ also connotes a more apocalyptic place for sport and sport media: the world, for instance, of ubiquitous illegal betting dominated scandals in international cricket and the corrupt practices of financial incentives for sport media event bids like the World Cup within FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, from the 1990s onwards, and the ‘live’ global sport media coverage of such events.

This chapter examines how the development of cable television and NFL Media enhanced the production and circulation of NFL Films content. As NFL Films' programming set the stage for the development of twenty-four-hour sports channels like ESPN, it established a starting point from which the National Football League (NFL) formed its own network, the NFL Network. In 2004 NFL Films was designated part of NFL Media, a multiplatform subsidiary run by former ESPN president Steve Bornstein that now includes the NFL Network, NFL.com, and offshoots like the RedZone specialty seasonal cable channel and the NFL Mobile smartphone application. This chapter explores how NFL Films, which established a foundation for the development of cable sports television and the transformation of the NFL into a multiplatform media institution, has been constrained to adjust its practices to maintain a place within the contemporary sports media landscape and league it helped create. It also considers how the Internet created new opportunities for the NFL to build and circulate its image.

This book explores how NFL Films shaped the way Americans view football and paved the way for the emergence of cable television and Internet sports media. Baseball is traditionally recognized as America's favorite pastime, but the country's most popular and lucrative sports organization since the late 1960s has been the National Football League (NFL). NFL football's tremendous cultural and economic power is not simply a product of the games it provides for millions of live and mediated spectators, but also its cultural meanings. More than merely a game, the sport embodies and articulates characteristics, beliefs, attitudes, and values unique to American history, identity, and everyday life. This book examines the ways that NFL Films' productions changed how pro football, and sport in general, is represented and imagined while establishing a foundation from which the contemporary sports media landscape—an almost unavoidable facet of popular culture—developed. It discusses the institutional and cultural history of NFL Films as well as its circulating and archived productions, the discourses it generates, and the discourses surrounding the company.

This chapter examines how NFL Films' engagements with aesthetic traditions, the discourses surrounding the company, and its selective incorporation of positive critical reception into its publicity materials separate the organization from other sports media outlets and, by extension, distinguish the National Football League (NFL) from competing sports organizations. Throughout its history, NFL Films has taken great pains to emphasize its distinction within sports media and in the broader contexts of art and media culture. The company places its productions in dialogue with established aesthetic traditions, reinforces its producers' status as legitimate artists, advertises the various accolades it has received, and distances itself from NFL's commercial motives. This chapter explains NFL Films' use of aesthetic traditions and discourses to craft its image and position the company as part of an artworld—a status that is remarkably rare in sports television and in sports media more generally. It also considers how NFL Films situates Ed and Steve Sabol as artistic visionaries who play central roles in reinforcing its efforts to claim status as a site that produces art.

Chapter one establishes the organizational context that facilitated the integration of diverse female athletes into the UFC brand. A “millennial sports media brand,” such as the UFC, deploys branding and marketing strategies characteristic of the millennial generation while simultaneously courting fans from this same demographic. In fact, the UFC might have faded into obscurity in the mid-2000s had the brand not begun experimenting with digital platforms and social media. The UFC enthusiastically embraced digital media, began actively seeking global audience demographics by representing fighters from around the world, and integrated a “we are all fighters” brand maxim, an ethos that understands diversity as something every fighter and fan possesses. Each of these approaches combine to create a millennial sports media brand ready to promote and exploit diverse female athletes.

This concluding chapter examines the continued presence of NFL Films' traditional practices—and the values they deliver—at a time when the National Football League (NFL) evidences less support for programming that displays these conventions. Despite its decreased importance to the contemporary league, the cultural and aesthetic significance of NFL Films productions exceeds the realm of pro football and even sports media. Despite their increased scarcity on venues like ESPN and NFL Network, NFL Films' traditional aesthetic practices and the values they convey circulate independently of the company's depictions of pro football. It is now virtually impossible to watch TV for very long during the football season without witnessing at least one commercial that evokes NFL Films' conventions. This chapter discusses the legacy of NFL Films, including the establishment of a league-owned media infrastructure upon which the NFL continues to expand and that all other major sports organizations have since emulated, along with the creation of a framework from which contemporary sports television developed its formal practices and enhanced its presence on the medium.

This chapter examines the rhetorical consonances between black press support for Flood and the national sports media’s advocacy of his case. It considers the support Flood received in the New York Times and the Sporting News, the era’s two most nationally significant newspapers to report on sports. It argues that black newspapers advocated Flood in a persuasive defense of universal justice and simultaneously fought to protect an institution—baseball—with nearly unmatched symbolic importance to liberalism’s progress narrative.

This chapter examines the productions of NFL Films that not only document but also exalt the National Football League (NFL). NFL Films productions document and provide historical records of NFL games. It creates the league's history by arranging exceptional moments into celebratory narratives, such as Greatest Moments in Dallas Cowboys History (1992), Era of Excellence: The 1980s,(1989), and the syndicated television program NFL Game of the Week. NFL Films' documentaries suggest the NFL's past is constituted by extraordinary moments—diving touchdown catches, punishing blocks, and graceful runs—that evidence the league's unique excitement and epic importance. This chapter discusses NFL Films' production practices that aim to glorify pro football and how its material is influenced by the media outlets for which the company produces content. It shows that NFL Films' highlights offer a model through which to explain the emergence of the contemporary sports highlight—perhaps the most powerful and prevalent genre in sports media.

The third chapter of Fighting Visibility investigates how the UFC incorporates diverse female fighters into discourses of meritocracy and the American dream. While sports media has long embraced the myth of the American dream in its storytelling, narratives and human-interest stories about pugilists rarely feature women as the central protagonists and pursuers of that dream. Branded difference in the UFC alters this discourse to include women of diverse nationalities, ethnicities, and sexualities. The revisions to include women of color and lesbians in the dream discourse entice an expendable labor force willing to sacrifice their health, wellness, and livelihood to pursue their UFC dreams, which proves yet again that making women visible in sports media does not automatically yield equity.