From: shun@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (shun.cheung)
Subject: Re: Tennis Broadcast in Europe
Organization: AT&T
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 12:57:32 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.000925.17836@cs.wisc.edu> solodov@monterey1.cs.wisc.edu (Mikhail V. Solodov) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan8.190023.16132@cc.gatech.edu> csmith@cc.gatech.edu (Christopher Smith) writes:
>>>
>>>I heard or read somewhere that the ATP championships last year was one
>>>of the most watched (if not the most watched) sporting events ever in
>>>Germany.  Imagine, if you will, the U.S. Open finals garnering as big
>>>or bigger an audience than the Super Bowl in the USA!  That is the
>>>difference between the popularity of tennis in the USA and the
>>>popularity of tennis in Europe.

>   Well, I believe major soccer (football, being precise) games draw
> bigger crowds and attention in Europe than tennis and as big as
> the Super Bowl in the US.

That's true, but soccer (football) is the only major sport in most
European countries. In the US, there are three major professional
sports (American football, baseball, and basketball). Moreover, a
soccer team usually plays once a week during the season. A baseball
or a basketball team in the US plays several games a week. A "dir-hard"
baseball fan can spend a lot of time watching baseball all week and
has little time left for tennis. In addition to that, all of these
four are team sports, and, in most cases, the teams are associated
with a city or a geographical area such as the San Francisco 49ers,
the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Bulls, etc. It is much easier for
an individual to identify him/herself with a local team. For tennis
to generate a similar amount of popularity, a player needs to become
a "national hero" type figure, as in the case of Becker for Germany
(especially during the ATP championship last year) and Connors for
the US during US Open, 1991.

>Mei-Ling L. Liu writes:
>>
>>But everything is relative.  Perhaps they are not as inundated with
>>as many major sports?  I mean, here we have football and  basketball,
>>both professional and college, and then baseball, hockey, golf, and tennis.  
>>The market is glutted, with every sport trying to expand at the 
>>expense of others.

This is certainly true in the US.

>>Still, I look at the schedules of ESPN and can see lots of questionable
>>programs(dogs and cats show, muscle-building, etc.), so is tennis really
>>less marketable than those shows, or is it because of the costs (esp.
>>the travelling expenses) involved?
>
>   This is a great puzzle for me as well..                 
>Take even something which makes more sense than cats - say, auto racing.
>I have really hard time trying to imagine that it is capable of attracting
>an audience comparable to that of tennis. What's going on here ?!
>May be auto industry covers everything, and they just don't care whether
>anyone is watching ?

I too have a hard time understanding why people are so excited about
auto racing, but it is quite popular. I know some people who wouldn't
miss any auto racing on TV, belive it or not. I have an even harder
time understanding why people want to watch programs such as monster
truck (crushing cars), etc.

Perhaps with improved communication technology and increased bandwidth,
in the future, we can get European sports channels as part of the cable
package here in the US. I just do see that happening any time soon.
-- 
-- Shun Cheung,    electronic: shun.cheung@att.com    voice: (908) 615-5135
     AT&T, 480 Red Hill Road, Middletown, NJ,  07748  USA