Is the Sports documentary surge nearing saturation? Is the era of in-depth one-to-one interviews with star journalists done and dusted and is a local sport like Gaelic Games in danger of being swept aside as the mega sports and mega media channels focus more and more on the elite end of international sport?
These were some of the questions posed in a front cover major feature in Sunday’s Business Post to which Rob Hartnett of Sport for Business and Sinead Galvin of Galvin Sports were major contributors.
“It’s a changing world and a little uncomfortable from a traditional media perspective that the idea of access to players is now different,” said Hartnett. “Access is just in a different form now than it ever used to be, and maybe it’s a bit more democratic now as well.”
In relation to the debate on the lack of access to Gaelic Games stars that has been a persistent grumble this year he adds that “For amateurs who have to juggle work, life and their sporting careers, the time needed to sit down with a single journalist is at a premium. Writing a tweet or posting on Instagram is a lot quicker and also avoids the risk of being filtered through someone else’s perception.”
We look at the enduring power of sport to draw in audiences for live coverage but also the appeal of the episodic docu-series like Drive to Survive, All or Nothing or Hard Knocks.
They work for sport in terms of creating powerful storytelling and are also a win for streaming media as they lock in mas market audiences and open up the sport in the way that was most obvious through F1 and Drive to Survive but which is also coming down the line with Golf and Tennis.
It is a detailed piece pulled together by Peter O’Dwyer with contributions as well from journalist Denis Walsh and others.
The final word goes to Hartnett who concedes that sport is “an irrelevance in many ways, but one in which the act of winning or losing brings the best out of the individuals out on the field of play, but is also such a huge part of what fans live their lives through.
If you have a subscription you can read the article in full here.
Stream to Survive: The sports seeking to emulate F1’s Netflix coup and the risks for those that don’t (subscription required)
