Richard Haynes – Televising the World Cup

The Director of Stirling Media Research Institute University of Stirling (UK) presented the issue of ‘Televising the World Cup: A Cultural History of Technological Rhetoric’. Richard Haynes explained the evolution of TV coverage of sports, based on World Cup coverages in the last 60 years, and how the public cope with the information provided by the news.

The researcher explained how the close relationship between broadcasters and organisers has started and the World Cup got to be considered important news in generalistic news coverage. The importance of TV, at the beginning very limited by the costs of purchase, was taken over by evolution of technology, like color TV and cheaper equipments, that made it become part of people’s lives.

According to Haynes, we’re living an Age of convergence, with full coverage such as BBC Sport’s for the World Cup, joining multimedia elements to the narrative, which had more visits than FIFA website. Sport events like Fifa World Cup “are very important drivers of new technology”. For the future, coverage can explore the market of 3D technology in further mega sports events.