I'm sitting here watching the Super Bowl wondering how this whole sports thing got so popular and stumbled upon Roone Arledge. He was an " American sports broadcasting pioneer who was chairman of ABC News from 1977 until his death, and a key part of the company's rise to competition with the two other main broadcasting stations, NBC and CBS, in the '60s, '70s, and '80s" (Wikipedia). Turns out he made quite a contribution to the wonderful Wide World of Sports, literally.
He took the generic football game and asked, "How do I make people care?" In the 60s, there were no exciting shots or digital effects to rely on. No scrolling score banner. He wanted to change viewers' behaviours and increase ratings by making them care about all teams and their rankings other than just their hometown team. Now, we know how one loss affects the ranking of another team and we check the score to figure out who's barely winning.
He needed to find a way to attract and retain an audience for their low-budget sports programming. He gave viewers context. He made each game mean something to the viewer by taking away the wide boring shots and getting close with fans interviews before games, added tidbits about game rules, created a mood between rival teams, and instant replays to name a few. For Monday Night Football it is the "Thrill of victory, agony of defeat."
He found a way to target an audience and change their behaviour by creating a gap in knowledge and helping viewers close it. Now the NFL, ESPN, Wide World of Sports take in millions of dollars a year on contracts and licenses, which is a whole other post in itself.
The Super Bowl has now become one of the most anticipated sports events of the year. This year's match up is interesting: A truly undefeated year, or brothers win back-to-back. Either way, someone's gonna get a hurt real bad
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