Media & Communication Department
Justin Deutsch
Play Ball!
The Experience of Watching Sports on Television
One of America's favorite pastimes is to watch sports on television.
Since the first-ever televised sporting event, a baseball game between
the Princeton Tigers and the Columbia Lions way back in 1939, sports
on television has developed into a huge industry in the United States.
This paper provides a review of literature by historians who have
evaluated sports on television, and more specifically, historians
who have measured the behaviors, attitudes, and emotions of men
and women when watching televised sports. By analyzing these behaviors,
one can gain a better understanding of the different levels of attachment
that men and women have to televised sports, and how the responses
of both genders relate to societal expectations about how both men
and women should behave. The paper predicts that as sports become
more open to women, and more sports leagues are generated, the wide
differences in behaviors of men and women when watching televised
sports will be reduced.