was adding two more teams to the playoffs, two more weeks to the seasons starting in 1992, and to help offset the enormous costs of coverage rights the networks added a total of five more 30-second commercial spots to its NFL games by 1992 (Zoglin 1).
As billion-dollar deals and expensive advertising spots began to emerge and reshape the NFL, so, too, media coverage of sports increased through more coverage of sports events by established networks and cable stations as well as the addition of new sports stations like ESPN, an all-sports channel launched in 1979. In 1988, 723 sporting events were shown on cable, up from 158 in 1979, while the network offerings rose from 341 to 453 in the same period (Zoglin 2). Today, ESPN boasts more than 80 million viewers and aggressively bids for major sports events like its NFL Thursday night games (Zoglin 2). As these potentially lucrative changes pervaded the sports industry, corporate America quickly entered the fray. Companies like HBO, Ted Turner’s TNT, ABC, NBC, CBS, Disney, Viacom, and others began to compete for the rights to NFL coverage.
Thus, the relationship between the media, corporate America, and sports has reshaped not only economics but the shape of the game itself. As evidence of this, one only need look at the actual game to see that it is designed as an entertainment shaped around advertising. When does the kickoff in NFL games happen? When the two-minute TV commercial break is over. The media that once only covered the NFL has now taken it over. Even the nature of the game is different because of expensive media and advertising contracts. As one critic of the influence of the media and advertising on sports relates “Pro football has been manhandled in annoying ways. The game trudges along more slowly than ever, thanks partly to the profusion of TV time outs; the average game length is now 3 hr. 11 min., up from 2 hr. 57 min. in 1978” (Zoglin 2). Furth...