Book chapter
ESPN: Live Sports, Documentary Prestige, and On-Demand Culture
From Networks to Netflix, pp.107-115
Routledge, 1
2018
DOI: 10.4324/9781315658643-10
Abstract
This chapter explores how the sports media outlet ESPN works to maintain is self-named “Worldwide Leader” status in on-demand culture by stressing the value of the live sports it carries across platforms and by accompanying this coverage with documentaries geared toward the “binge-able” consumption that characterizes digital streaming services.
This chapter explores how the sports media outlet ESPN works to maintain is self-named "Worldwide Leader" status in on-demand culture by stressing the value of the live sports it carries across platforms and by accompanying this coverage with documentaries geared toward the "binge-able" consumption that characterizes digital streaming services. ESPN's power, however, cannot be reduced to a function of its content, platforms, and expansive reach. The organization carefully brands itself as an industrial and cultural authority—an effort that crystallized with its 1998 implementation of the motto "The Worldwide Leader in Sports." The deregulated media industry's amenability to corporate media conglomerates like Disney further aids ESPN's status and value. As of 2016, Disney leveraged ESPN's popularity to charge cable operators $6.55 monthly per subscriber to carry the channel. ESPN was the first all-sports cable network when it launched on September 9, 1979. The heavy-handed promotion indicates that ESPN possesses something that most streaming services do not: live sports.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- ESPN: Live Sports, Documentary Prestige, and On-Demand Culture
- Creators
- Travis Vogan
- Contributors
- Derek Johnson (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- From Networks to Netflix, pp.107-115
- Edition
- 1
- DOI
- 10.4324/9781315658643-10
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Alternative title
- ESPN
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2018
- Academic Unit
- American Studies; School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Record Identifier
- 9984269238202771
Metrics
50 Record Views