Passive consumers rather have a preferred station than preferred programmes.This idleness in switching to another station is a competitive advantage.The station can present a new sport with a low actual utility without significant audience losses.
Choice of sports and athletes:
The accumulation of consumption capital can be alleviated by focusing the coverage on a small number of teams or athletes.
Especially regional programmes can be useful instruments to present local teams,because they attract audiences primarily interested in the region which do not care for the specific content.
The TV station should stress the personality of the athletes,as the identification with the athletes is an important factor for the decision to watch the next competition.
Identification can be easier built up with winners than with losers.Therefore,the TV stations should identify sports with successful native athletes which compete on an international level.
In team sports it is easy to transfer identification from one generation of athletes to the next one.In individual sports the situation is very different:It is comparably easy to build up the reputation of a successful sportsman,but it is lost when the athlete ends his career.Thus,a specialization on individual sports involves many risks for the TV station.The decline of the number of tennis viewers in Germany after the resignation of Boris Becker and Steffi Graf can serve as example.
If focusing on an individual sport,the TV station should choose a sport with a high probability of national heroes in the future.For this reason,e.g.ski jumping is better suited than tennis.The superstars in tennis can come from nearly every country while the number of countries where ski jumping is popular is limited for climatic reasons.
Reasons for super stardom in TV sports
The accumulation process of consumption capital is a long-term investment.It needs a lot of time to acquire enough consumption capital to enjoy an unknown sport,so every viewer will naturally concentrate on a few only.While this in principal allows many sports to attract a profitably large audience,we observe a high concentration in reality:In most countries only two or three sports are regularly aired on TV.
Sports are not only attractive for the exciting competition itself,but they can serve as basis for social interaction,too.This social motive is responsible for the specialisation of most people on the same sports.If every person would have a different favourite sport,it is impossible to hold conversations with friends about the latest match.In this case the investment into the specific consumption capital cannot be used for social communication.
From an economic point of view it is more profitable for consumers to specialise on a popular sport,for example on football instead of netball.There are many“experts”on football so it is easy to start a conversation with comments on the latest match.As the information on football is widespread,the investment costs to gain basic knowledge are low,too.It is no surprise that two or three major sports are superstars in TV,while the majority of sports have few chances to be presented in TV.As a bad performance does not significantly hurt the social motive，it makes no real difference to discuss with friends about a won or a lost match,the dominance of the big sports is guaranteed for a long time.
Conclusion
Network externalities and the high costs of acquiring specific consumption capital will always limit the number of major sports in TV.Their market position is nearly unchallengeable.But the market share of some other sports—again only a small number—can be improved if efficient marketing strategies are applied.Many TV stations often air single high ranked competitions of a large number of different sports.However,investing into the specific consumption capital of a few selected sports would be more promising in the long run.
References：
Adler,M.“Stardom and Talent”.The American Economic Review,1985(75),S.208-212.
Hirsch,P.M.“An Organizational Perspective on Television”.In Withey,S.B./Abeles,R.P.:Television and Social Behavior:Beyond Violence and Children.Hillsdale 1980,S.83-102.
Schellhaa,H.M./Hafkemeyer,L.Wie kommt der Sport ins Fernsehen?Eine Wettbewerbspolitische Analyse.Koln 2002.Shapiro,C.“Premiums for High Quality Products as Returns to Reputation”.The Quarterly Journal of Economics,1983(98),S.349-365.
Stigler,G.J./Becker,G.S.“De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum”.The American Economic Review,1977(67),S.76-90.〔Prof.Dr.Horst.M Schellhaass,University of Cologne〕