Expensive sport

Samuel Helbling on economics and top-class sportTV stations generate the highest viewing figures worldwide with sports programs. It is understandable that sports managers demand astronomical sums for their TV rights. In addition to the expensive rights, production costs are also high. Anyone who acquires the broadcasting rights for a top event has to stage it in a way that is suitable for television, and after the boom years characterized by excess, a stiff economic wind is blowing against the marketing of top-class sport. Following the bankruptcy of the Zug-based sports marketing giant ISL and the demise of the Kirch media group, the industry is suffering from a prolonged slump (see page 9). However, unlike cultural sponsorship, investors in sport can assume that they will reach the masses with top quality. The commercialization of many areas of life is often lamented by cultural critics with the argument that it encourages the production of inferior quality. This may perhaps be true for culture, religion or tourism. This does not apply to sport: where a lot of money is involved, the standard of performances rises, records are broken and the dynamic increases. It is only logical that sports officials emphasize that the economy does not instrumentalize sport. In fact, the opposite is true: sport uses economic resources to improve.
> Samuel Helbling, Editor-in-Chief