No abstract

Live events are central to television production. Live sporting events, in particular, reliably draw big audiences, even though more consumers unsubscribe from cable to stream content on-demand. Traditionally, the mediated production of these sporting events have used technical and production crews working together on-site at the event. But technological advances have created a new production model, allowing the production crew to cover the event from a broadcast production hub, miles away, while the technical crew still works from the event itself. These remote integration model productions have been implemented around the world and across all forms of sports broadcasting, following a push for economic efficiency—fundamental in a capitalist system. This manuscript is a commentary on the effects of the COVID-19 global crisis on sports productions, with a focus on remote integration model productions. More specifically, the authors argue that the number of remote sports productions will grow exponentially faster, due to the pandemic, than they would have under normal economic circumstances. The consequences on sport media education and research are further discussed, and a call for much needed practice-based sports production research is made.

This study explored the relationship cultivation and social media strategies companies used to cultivate relationships with their publics in two culturally distinct markets of China and the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. A quantitative content analysis of Weibo ( n = 756) and Twitter ( n = 645) posts from Fortune 500 companies in China ( n = 30) and the U.S. ( n = 30) respectively was conducted to examine the effects of their relational efforts on public engagement. Results showed that certain relationship cultivation strategies and use of social media functions effectively increased public engagement in both China and the U.S., although on different levels. Both Chinese and U.S. companies most frequently adopted the strategy of openness. While the openness strategy was most effective at raising engagement levels in the U.S., publics of Chinese companies became more engaged when companies used the access strategy. Also, publics of Chinese companies showed higher levels of engagement and more positive emotions toward companies’ social media messages than their U.S. counterparts. The findings advance our understanding of organization-public relationships in a worldwide disaster setting, with insights informing the global public relations theory and practices.

A single study was conducted exploring perceptions of causal attributions communicated through a task performance error during a live sports broadcast. Participants were recruited from within the live broadcast sports community and causal attributions of a camera operator's performance were measured using a Multidimensional Observer Attributions for Performance Scale (MOAPS) developed by Rutherford, Harari, and Rudolph (2013). Additional scales were created to measure perceptions of importance, frequency, and future hiring recommendations. Results found that following a camera mistake in a live sports broadcast, the camera operator's relationship with the director significantly influenced future hiring recommendations and attributions of ability in certain conditions. A camera operator in a close relationship with a director was more likely to be recommended for future work compared with a camera operator in a distant relationship with a director. As expected, fatigue had no significant impact on future hiring recommendations. However, fatigue influenced attributions of luck in certain conditions. This study extended attribution theory into the area of live sports broadcasts and sports communication generally. Practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.

In 2017, NFL viewers complained when NBC Sports used the “Madden” camera for live play-by-play coverage of two Thursday Night Football games. Their comments indicated that they had a difficult time estimating yardage from the new perspective. Those games were just two recent examples of viewers complaining about changes in the visual presentation of live sports broadcasts—a phenomenon that has been happening with the Madden camera for more than a decade. The sports broadcasters’ inability to adjust its production technique for live football coverage, despite repeated attempts, provides important insights about the nature of mass communication. As sports broadcasters continue to look for new production techniques in a constantly evolving media landscape, these findings could help guide their production practices. Using game footage from four NFL broadcasts, the present study tested for differences in yardage estimations made from the traditional game camera (i.e., a stationary camera perpendicular to the field) and the Madden camera (i.e., a moving camera on wires positioned over the field). Participants (N = 473) were randomly assigned to watch 11 plays from either the traditional game camera angle or the Madden camera angle. No significant differences were found in estimates of yardage gains based on camera angle. Thehigh variance in the findings suggests that distance estimations are complex visual processes that may require specialized training to improve accuracy.