Soccer & Society

ISSN: 1466-0970 (Print) 1743-9590 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fsas20

Broadcasting the World Cup: a multinational

comparative analysis broadcast quality in the 2014
World Cup

Thomas Horky, Galen Clavio & Christoph Grimmer

To cite this article: Thomas Horky, Galen Clavio & Christoph Grimmer (2018): Broadcasting the
World Cup: a multinational comparative analysis broadcast quality in the 2014 World Cup, Soccer &
Society, DOI: 10.1080/14660970.2018.1448794

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2018.1448794

Published online: 12 Mar 2018.

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Soccer & Society, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2018.1448794

Broadcasting the World Cup: a multinational comparative analysis

broadcast quality in the 2014 World Cup
Thomas Horkya, Galen Claviob and Christoph Grimmerc
a
Department Media School, Macromedia University of Applied Sciences – Sport Communication, Hamburg, Germany;
b
Department Media School, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA; cDepartment Sports Science, Eberhard Karls
Universitat Tubingen Tubingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

ABSTRACT
Mega sporting events such as FIFA’s quadrennial World Cup are among
the few telecasts capable of generating large nationwide and worldwide
numbers. The 2014 World Cup garnered over one billion estimated
viewers, and events such as this represent important elements of the
sports media landscape, providing media benchmarks in journalism as
well as commercialism. This study evaluates telecasts from four different
countries during the 2014 World Cup, examining these telecasts through
the lens of broadcast quality, as explored in earlier studies of such telecasts.
Scholars examined telecasts originating in Germany, Ghana, Portugal, and
the United States, comparing a variety of elements within each broadcast
via content analysis. Results indicated an increasing emphasis on pre-match
coverage in telecasts, a growing importance of panel discussions and ‘expert’
commentary, and a corresponding loss of hard news and journalism. These
findings appear to correspond with the research of Turner, who observed
increased focus on periphery and contextual items in a longitudinal analysis
of ESPN’s SportsCenter.

Introduction
Mega sporting events like FIFA’s quadrennial World Cup consistently draw large television and video
audiences around the globe. The 2014 edition of the World Cup, held in Brazil, saw record-breaking
audiences in numerous countries, including the United States, Brazil, France, Germany and the United
Kingdom.1 FIFA struck broadcast agreements with over 700 different media entities, many of which
focused on video transmission of games.2 This enabled FIFA to estimate a viewership number of at
least one billion people for the 2014 final, a number that exceeded both the opening ceremonies of
the 2012 London Olympic Games and the National Football League’s Super Bowl.3
These numbers are vitally important to major broadcast entities across the globe, particularly those
located in countries where the traditional television broadcast model is disintegrating. In the United
States in particular, both television ratings and media company profits have fallen precipitously since
their high-water marks in the mass media era of broadcasting.4 This phenomenon is not limited to

CONTACT  Thomas Horky  [email protected]

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2   T. HORKY ET AL.

North America, as television ratings of prominent sports programming such as Formula One racing
has fallen significantly in countries and regions as diverse as Germany, Italy and Latin America.5
Shifts in broadcast editorial content have continued to alter both audience perceptions of televised
broadcasting and the attitudes of those running broadcast entities. Recently, Great Britain’s British
Broadcasting Company (BBC) announced that it was orienting itself as an ‘internet-centric’ broad-
casting organization, rather than one focused primarily on the traditional broadcast television model.6
Within the confines of sport, the video broadcasting model still relies on ratings, which measure
the total number of audience members watching an event. From that perspective, the top of the food
chain of televised sports journalism is the mega-event. Whether it be the World Cup, the Olympics,
the Super Bowl in the United States, the UEFA Champions League, the broadcasts of these mega-
events provide important journalistic and media benchmarks for the rest of the industry, both in
terms of journalism and in terms of commercialism.7 Recently, Haynes and Boyle identified three
eras for televising the World Cup, and they integrated the 2014 World Cup in category three with
the ‘uncertain age of convergent processes and divergent media’.8 So, it is important to evaluate not
just the audience numbers of these events, but also the journalistic quality that is present therein. For
the purposes of this article, journalistic quality is defined by the contents and forms of presentation
within the broadcasting programs which portray these media events. By evaluating the forms of pres-
entation and content of broadcast programs emanating from the official World Cup broadcasters in
different countries focusing on the same event, it is possible to analyze the similarities or differences
in journalistic quality.

Review of Literature
This study builds off of an earlier investigation of sports broadcasting quality. Horky9 examined the
nature of quality in live sports broadcasting of World Cup broadcasts, and posited that three primary
perspectives were the most useful to consider whether a broadcast possessed inherent quality. These
perspectives were dubbed functional, normative and relational.10 Functional elements of sports broad-
casting related to the societal functions that the media satisfy through their sportscasts. Normative
elements relate to the journalistic and presentational standards that media organizations operate under
when broadcasting sporting events. Relational elements focus on the needs that people who follow
sports broadcasts possess.
Weischenberg11 highlighted four levels of reference for measuring quality in journalism, all of which
focused on the concept of variety or diversity as a dominant dimension in achieving quality. Table 1
highlights these measures. For the purposes of this study, the elements contained in the Program level
are pertinent, as they focus specifically on the output provided by the media organizations in relation
to the broadcast. A focus on this level also allows for cross-country examination of programming that
focuses on the same subject, as it is possible to compare similarities and differences in forms, ways of
presentation, sources and actors from channel to channel.

Table 1. Quality Measures in Journalism: Dimensions in Variety.

Level of reference Dimensions

Media system Number of different types of media
  Number of publishing units (e.g. titles)
  Number of independent publishing units
Media organization Variety of media producers
  Variety of types of institutions
  Variety of delivery systems
Program Variety of forms (genres) and ways of presentation
  Variety of sources
  Variety in relation to events and actors
  Variety of communication spaces represented
Audience Variety in audiences using programs
  Variety of the types of offerings used, etc.
 SOCCER & SOCIETY   3

‘Diversity is a central concept in the study of media output’, Hillve, Majanen and Rosengren described
the relevance of variety for quality particularly in television programming. For these broadcasts, they
defined ‘diversity as supply’ which ‘guarantee a high level of cumulative descriptive quality, since the
various types of programmes offer differential descriptions, interpretations and explanations of that
motley creature called reality’.12 Hillve et al. described the different patterns of television journalism
as the main category for the dimension of variety. A comparative analysis of diversity especially in
Western Europe was presented by Kolb,13 who underlined the meaning of variety for building up
quality in television programming. From a broader ethical perspective in journalism, diversity has
been described as a ‘watchword’ for media quality,14 who explained that virtuous journalists should
use variety as part of an ethical code of journalistic practice.
Variety in sports journalism, particularly televised sports productions, allows for a narrative-driven
construct which provides a wide variety of presentation forms, including reporting, commentary and
other elements. These concepts, and their underlying sociological context as visual texts, have been
examined by many scholars.15
In this case study, the goal is to examine televised sports broadcasting quality based on variety,
as defined by the level of diversity of presentation approaches in selected sports programming. Most
recently, English16 examined homogeneity in sports journalism, focusing on newspaper sports sec-
tions in three countries on three continents. English found that while journalists often placed a large
amount of emphasis on so-called exclusive news, there were hardly any stories in the over 4000 articles
examined which were labelled as ‘exclusive’, and that exclusive material in articles tended to occur in
less than 7% of the observed articles. The vast majority of material printed in these sports sections
was the same or similar to articles published in other sports sections.
Horky17 conducted a longitudinal, cross-sectional content analysis of the content of live sports
broadcasts of German national soccer team broadcasts over a 16 year period, evaluating individual
segments of the broadcast for their presentation form and topic. The results found that the overall
length of German national team broadcasts increased by 69% from 1994 to 2010, with the majority of
that additional time accounted for by additional pre-match and post-match reporting by the television
entities. A comparison between the third-place World Cup games featuring Germany in 2006 and 2010
found increases in pre-packaged journalistic reports, with percentage decreases in expert discussion
and commentary. From a topical perspective, the majority of the broadcast was focused on either live
(25%) or post-match reporting (22%), with reports focusing on the atmosphere surrounding the game
comprising 10% of the broadcast and pre-match reporting comprising 8%. These results only refer to
German soccer broadcasts, but serve as a basis for an international comparison of journalistic quality.
Using these numbers as a starting point, the current study seeks to examine if the focus of World Cup
broadcasts in countries outside of Germany are similar or different.
In an examination of ESPN’s flagship sports news program SportsCenter, Turner utilized a longi-
tudinal quantitative analysis to evaluate the development of the show over a decade.18 Turner’s study
focused on segments within SportsCenter, ignoring intros, teasers and outros. Drawing off of agenda
setting and framing theories, Turner found that SportsCenter’s focus appeared to shift from an earlier
emphasis on sport competition towards a focus on periphery and context within mediated sport. Turner
also found that segment length increased from 1999 to 2009, allowing an increase in dynamism within
the segments. In the words of Turner, the 2009 versions of SportsCenter included ‘…more digestion of
news items, more synthesis between stories, more interactive components, more multimedia, more
commentary, and more expert opinion’.19
ESPN’s influence on segment-based sports television has also been noted by other scholars.
Halliday20 noted that ‘ESPN’s presentation and delivery style have also changed the way local sports-
casters approach their nightly segments’. Halliday’s research, which included both quantitative and
qualitative data collection from North American sports anchors and reporters, found that many report-
ers perceived a lack of resources on the local level for covering sports, as well as perceptions of mixed
attitudes by news management about the importance of sports within the nightly news broadcast.
4   T. HORKY ET AL.

Continued observation and exploration of broadcast quality is important from both a scholarly
perspective and a practical perspective. Scholars must evaluate the current atmosphere of sports tele-
vision broadcasting, considering it is changing constantly due to both internal and external pressures.
The theoretical bases of television mass media research may be endangered due to the shift away
from mass audiences and towards narrowcasting and mobile formatting. Evaluating the trends in
presentation and topic selection in widely viewed sports programming can inform both scholars and
practitioners about what is currently being presented to the audience, and the size of the audiences
for World Cup and other mega-event broadcasts could have agenda setting implications for audiences
of sporting events in general.
In line with Horky’s21 longitudinal and cross-sectional analysis of German live soccer broadcasts, the
purpose of this case study is to evaluate format and topic content of broadcasts in multiple countries
during the 2014 World Cup. Comparing telecasts in Germany with telecasts of similar events in other
countries allows us to specifically assess the defined concept of quality as it relates to television sports
journalism in Germany, while simultaneously gaining insights into the commonalities and differences
of television sports journalism in the other countries being used in comparison.
This study was guided by the following research questions:
RQ1: What observable patterns of broadcasting exist in the examined countries’ telecasts of World Cup games?
RQ2: What is the current state of quality in sport journalism on televised broadcasts of the World Cup, based
on the presence of variety?
RQ3: How do variety and quality levels of World Cup telecasts differ based upon the country of origin for the
telecast?

Methodology
This case study utilized a content analysis of selected World Cup telecasts in four different countries.
Content analysis is a popular method of studying a variety of media forms, including television, and
allows for a systematic, replicable examination of variables within media content. In order to prop-
erly examine the research questions posed by this study, content analysis was carried out on selected
broadcasts from the 2014 World Cup.
Since this study is based off of earlier research into German sports journalism,22 the decision was
made to focus the data collection of this case study on a continuation of live soccer broadcasts in that
country, and to use the countries paired with Germany in the 2014 World Cup group stage as the
selected group of countries for comparative purposes. Accordingly, for this study, Germany’s group
stage games in the 2014 World Cup were selected. Herewith, Portugal, Ghana, and the United States
automatically became part of the sample.23
Six full telecasts were coded, two for each of the games in the group: Germany – Portugal on June
16, Germany – Ghana on June 21, and Germany – United States on June 26. The German television
station ARD carried the first two of these games, while the German television station ZDF carried
the third game. Both television stations are publicly funded television in Germany and they used the
same organizational structures for broadcasting. The structure of these broadcasts on both stations in
Germany were similar, with a presenter joined by a former football player as a gameplay expert, and a
third individual providing special commentary. The Portuguese broadcast of the Germany – Portugal
game was carried on RTP in Portugal, one of the main public stations in that country. This broadcast
contained a mix of personnel that included a sports journalist and a special commentator for studio
segments, and a post-game report containing a journalist paired with a retired football player. The
Ghanaian broadcast of the Germany – Ghana game, carried on by the free-to-air private TV3 Network
Limited in Ghana, contained a personnel mix that included a journalist, a video analyst, and a panel
of experts consisting of another journalist and two retired football players. The American broadcast
of the Germany – United States game, carried by the huge private television station ESPN, used a
personnel mix of a journalist as host, two retired American football players, and an on-site journalist.
 SOCCER & SOCIETY   5

The program saw a main moderator (sports journalist) with a commentator (a British broadcaster)
and an additional expert (former Football player).24
The unit of analysis for this study was a broadcast sequence, which was defined as an identifiable
and severable element of the broadcast that differed from what preceded or followed it due to a shift
in topic, broadcast style, or advertising break. Five trained coders, each working independently, coded
each broadcast in their native language. Due to language differences, no intercoder analysis was per-
formed, but all coders were given considerable prior instruction as to the definitions and applications
of codes utilized in the codebook,
Several variables were utilized in this coding structure, with the categories borrowed or derived
from the prior longitudinal study of World Cup broadcasting.25 Coders were asked to identify the
game in question, the broadcasting station the game appeared on, and the position of the sequence
within the broadcast (Pre-game, half-time, in-game, post-game). Coders were also asked to identify
the form of presentation (e.g. moderator presentation, commentator, live game commentary), the topic
of the segment (e.g. live sport, preliminary report, social issues), and the duration of the sequence in
seconds. A full accounting of the variables in the codebook is included in Appendix 1.
After the data were collected, they were placed into the statistical software called SPSS for analysis.
Frequency analyses was performed, to evaluate the various elements of broadcast segments included.
Certain variables were also recoded into broader group categories, in order to ease analysis of various
segment types and topics. For ease of analysis, the two German-language television stations were
combined into a single variable for analysis.
The variable of ‘form of presentation’ was recoded into three broader variables, namely in-stadium
commentary, in-studio commentary, and non-editorial content. In-stadium presentation contained all
commentary by those broadcasters located within the stadium, including live broadcasting before
and after the game. In-studio commentary included moderator presentation, expert interviews, mul-
ti-person discussions, long-form interviews, pre-recorded stories by journalists, and short interviews.
Non-editorial content included news, comedy, and advertising elements inserted into the broadcast.
The variable of ‘topic of segment’ was recoded into five broader variables, namely live game, game-fo-
cused, game context, social context, and ancillary. Live game topics included the actual broadcast of
the game itself. Game-focused topics included pre-game and post-game segments specifically focused
on the game at hand, including line-ups, practice reports, highlights, and analysis. Game context
topics included segments related to atmosphere, fans, team portrayal, referees, history, statistics, and
stadium/venue information. Social context included reports on the cultural, economic, social, and
health issues surrounding the games. Ancillary topics included casual talk, promotional lotteries,
advertising, and comedy.
Finally, the scale variable of time (in seconds) was recoded into quintiles. Crosstabulations were
performed on this recoded data, and ANOVA (analysis of variance) was performed on variables to
discern temporal and other differences.

Results
Data collection revealed an N of 564 segments (entire number of all segments analyzed) across
the broadcasts evaluated. German-language television contained the highest number of segments
(n = 377), followed by US television (n = 78), Ghana (n = 60), and Portugal (n = 49). It is important
to keep in mind that the German-language n is a sum total of three game broadcasts, while the other
countries’ broadcasts include only one game. However, even with that difference accounted for, the
average German-language broadcast contained a higher average number of segments (n = 125.7) than
the other countries.
In terms of broadcast duration, the Germany – Portugal match aired for nearly the same amount of
time in both involved countries, with Germany’s telecast taking up over 4:25 and Portugal’s exceeding
4:30. The Germany – Ghana contest took up less time in both countries (3:19 for German TV, 3:27
for Ghanaian TV), largely due to it being the second game of the day as opposed to the first. The
 6 
 T. HORKY ET AL.

Table 2. Segment time breakdown of analyzed games.

Position of sequence Group stage/1st game: Germany – Portugal Group stage/2nd game: Germany – Ghana Group stage/3rd game: Germany – USA
  Germany Portugal Germany Ghana Germany USA
  s % s % s % s % s % s %
1 Pre-game-reporting 6173 38.9 5520 33.9 2572 21.5 2985 24.0 6744 42.6 3656 33.0
2 Half time (break) 699 4.4 1040 6.4 856 7.2 1743 14.0 808 5.1 1031 9.3
3 Post-game reporting 3154 19.9 4097 25.1 2558 21.4 1992 16.0 2332 14.7 683 6.2
4 Soccer game (live broadcast) 5838 36.8 5644 34.6 5958 49.9 5718 46.0 5965 37.6 5711 51.5
Total 15,864   16,301   11,944   12,438   15,849   11,081  
 SOCCER & SOCIETY   7

Germany – USA game saw German TV returning to a lengthy broadcast format (4:24), while the
American broadcast was considerably shorter (3:04). From a viewership and ratings perspective, the
German broadcasts all exceeded 76% of market share, with a high-water viewership rate of 27.2 million
for the Germany – USA game. Portugal saw a total audience of 2.4 million, which still represented a
market share of 76.5%. Ghana saw a total audience of 12 million, and no market share information
was available. The United States saw a total audience of 10.8 million, good for a 6.7% market share.
RQ1 asked what observable patterns of broadcasting existed in the examined World Cup broad-
casts. In evaluating the broadcasts match-by-match, it is obvious that broadcast networks focus most
of their segment attention on the pre-game part of the match. Of the 182 segments present in the two
observed broadcasts of the Germany – Portugal match, 114 (62.6%) occurred in the pre-game, along
with 70 (42.9%) of the 163 in the Germany – Ghana match and 142 (64.8%) of the 219 observed in the
Germany – USA match. Each of these represents at least a plurality of segments devoted to each game,
if not an outright majority. Table 2 illustrates the by-second breakdown of each of the three games.
As noted in the table, United States television devoted the least amount of time to a broadcast of any
of the observed entities. This was largely due to the way the United States broadcast was structured,
with commercial breaks occurring closer to the start and end of the broadcast segments than in the
other countries.
German, Portuguese, and American broadcasts devoted a majority of their broadcast segments to
in-studio coverage. German TV averaged 90 distinct in-studio segments per broadcast, comprising
71.9% of the total. Meanwhile, Portuguese (32, 65.3%) and American (58, 74.3%) in-studio segments
also accounted for most of their on-air presence during the games. Ghanaian TV actually had more
on-site television reporting (n = 23) than in-studio television reporting (n = 22).
RQ2 asked what the current state of quality was in World Cup broadcasts, based upon the estab-
lished factor of variety. In terms of the form of presentation observed across all broadcasts, there was
a considerable amount of quality observed. Table 3 highlights the instances of the various segment
forms uncovered by this research. While segments featuring the moderator were more numerous,
they possessed the shortest mean time of all presentation forms. Among the in-studio elements,
panel discussions maintained the highest mean time consumed within the broadcast. When exam-
ining broader forms of presentation, in-studio segments were both more numerous (n = 383) and
shorter (M = 79.7, SD = 101.2) than on-site (n = 83, M = 503.5, SD = 974.6) and non-editorial (n = 98,
M = 113.8, SD = 157.9) forms.
When evaluating variety through the lens of topics discussed, the most prevalent topics found
focused on post-match reporting (n = 110). Table 4 indicates the top ten topics encountered, as well
as their mean times. When examining the reclassified topical categories, game-focused topics such
as stadium information, fan atmosphere, and statistics were more numerous (n = 213) than all other
segments, and received an average of 99.7 s of airtime (SD = 112.4). Game context categories, such
as cultural, social, and economic issues, received an average of 65.1 s of airtime (SD = 76.9) for each
of its 159 segments.

Table 3. Segment forms identified in World Cup broadcasts.

Item Frequency Per cent Mean time (s) Time SD

Moderator 144 25.5 23.1 23.5
Expert commentary 109 19.3 91.5 99.4
Trailer/advertising 79 14.0 99.1 137.9
Commentator 71 12.6 107.8 13.8
Story/report 68 12.1 128.4 98.6
Interview 38 6.7 120.1 19.3
Discussion 21 3.7 181.7 183.2
Other 19 3.4 174.8 49.8
Live game comment 12 2.1 2844.5 76.6
Statement 3 0.5 43.7 25.8
8   T. HORKY ET AL.

Table 4 Top ten topics encountered in World Cup broadcasts.

Item Frequency Per cent Mean time (s) Time SD

Follow-up 110 19.5 102.9 105.0
Preliminary report 103 18.3 96.2 120.4
Atmosphere/fans 71 12.6 63.5 90.6
Advertising 70 12.4 123.5 16.9
Live sport 39 6.9 933.4 1294.6
Program presentation 36 6.4 25.5 3.5
Venue 30 5.3 72.6 11.3
Portrayal 24 4.3 69.1 63.2
Other 24 4.3 103.0 42.3
History/statistics 18 3.2 46.7 7.6

Sequence positioning also affected the forms of presentation. The pregame sequence featured 326
of all aired segments (57.8%), exceeding in-game (26, 4.6%) halftime (66, 11.7%), and postgame (146,
25.9%). The pregame sequence also saw the largest and widest variety of topics covered, with each of
the five broader topical categories represented. The other three sequence positions did not contain
more than four of the observed topical categories. In examining the individual topics within these
various sequence positions, the pregame contained practically all references to team portrayal, team
prominence, referee information, history, statistics, and venue information.
RQ3 asked how variety and quality levels differed based upon the country of broadcast origin. In
evaluating the properties of each game broadcast, some differences are obvious. First, while a very
small proportion of the topics of the overall segments focused on the social context surrounding the
games, what few segments focused on this were almost entirely the providence of the German-language
broadcasts. In total, German television featured 11 such topical segments, compared to one segment for
USA television and no segments for Portuguese or Ghanaian television. Second, the German broad-
casts contained far more segmentation of the topics relating to the live-game broadcast, with a total
of 33 live-game segments over the three broadcasts. In contrast, the other three countries’ television
broadcasts only contained two live-game segments each.
Regarding form of presentation, German-language broadcasts contained very similar numbers
of on-site and non-editorial content to their foreign language counterparts. However, a considerable
difference existed between German-language segments in-studio and those of their foreign language
counterparts. Table 5 illustrates the differences between the broadcasts in this area.
One obvious difference between the European and non-European countries was the emphasis placed
on interviews and prerecorded stories versus live discussion. Figure 1 highlights these differences in
graphical form. While live discussion was totally absent from the German and Portuguese broadcasts,
it was quite prevalent in the American and Ghanaian broadcasts, Conversely, European broadcasts
were heavy on interviews and stories, unlike their overseas counterparts.

Table 5. Location of broadcast elements by country.

Match   German Portuguese Ghanaian USA Total

Portugal On-site 10 (7.5%) 7 (14.3%)     17 (9.3%)
  In-studio 103 (77.4%) 32 (65.3%)     135 (74.2%)
  Non-editorial 20 (15%) 10 (20.4%)     30 (16.5%)
             
Ghana On-site 21 (20.4%)   23 (38.3%)   44 (27%)
  In-studio 68 (66%)   22 (36.7%)   90 (55.2%)
  Non-editorial 14 (13.6%)   15 (25%)   29 (17.8%)
             
USA On-site 12 (8.5%)     10 (12.8%) 22 (10%)
  In-studio 100 (70.9%)     58 (74.4%) 158 (72.1%)
  Non-editorial 29 (20.6%)     10 (12.8%) 39 (17.8%)
Totals   377 49 60 78 564
 SOCCER & SOCIETY   9

Figure 1. Form of Presentation, Top 3, in %.

Figure 2. Variety of Topics, Top 6, in %.

Figure 2 also illustrates differences between countries in their approach to picking topics. The top
six topics in terms of overall percentage of time devoted are represented in this chart. The American
television channel devoted a higher proportion of time in minutes to pre-game reporting than did any
other broadcast, while the Ghanaian broadcast contained the highest proportion of advertising and
the Portuguese broadcast devoted the highest proportion of time to coverage of fans and atmosphere.

Discussion
The data from this case study highlight some intriguing similarities and differences between the exam-
ined countries when it comes to their treatment of World Cup broadcasts. In evaluating the concept
of variety within sports journalism broadcasts, we find some comparisons between Horky’s26 earlier
evaluation of major soccer match coverage and the current set of games. As was seen in that data-set,
there is an increasing emphasis on pre-match coverage of games. In all three broadcasts, pre-match
10   T. HORKY ET AL.

coverage occupied a plurality of overall coverage, and in two of the games, it exceeded live-match
coverage.
The trend towards expansion of pre-match coverage is an important development for issues of
broadcast variety, because pre-match coverage allows for a broader selection of topics and presenta-
tion styles than in-match or post-match coverage, as seen by the evaluation of those areas in the data.
Broadcasting companies appear focused on utilizing pre-game coverage as their primary content
canvas, as the network is promoting that game telecast that is about to air. The network is particularly
trying to generate interest for the casual fan that can drive viewership. By including longer pre-game
broadcasts with a larger variety of production approaches, television producers may be hoping to
capture casual fans by presenting compelling stories and commentaries in a studio-driven format that
is more welcoming than the action-focused production of the in-game broadcast.
The opposite holds true for post-game reporting. Casual fans are unlikely to watch post-game
analysis of an event which they are not fully invested in. Fans of the losing team might have no interest
in continuing to watch the program, thereby depressing the audience size for that segment. And in
a social media-driven age where interactions between fans, other fans, and media are commonplace
both during and immediately after games, even fans of winning teams may find post-game coverage
of a match to be superfluous to the other information sources at their disposal.
A considerable amount of time was devoted to panel discussions and expert commentary. This is
unsurprising, as Boyle described earlier the ‘rise of pundit sports journalism’ as an ‘important part
of the wider journalistic discourse’.27 This finding matches the observations from the longitudinal
analysis of World Cup and European Cup broadcasts, where Horky28 encountered a gradual ‘loss of
significance of sport journalism’ due to the introduction of entertainment, comedy and commentary,
as opposed to a focus on hard journalism. In fact, the percentage of time spent on expert commentary
and discussion was actually greater in this sample than that observed in the prior studies of World
Cup games. This form of analysis appears to be fully ensconced in the sports broadcasting ensemble,
and may indicate a desire of television producers to make the broadcast and its intrinsic material more
relatable to the viewing audience.
Of the four observed countries’ broadcasts, Ghana was alone in having a relatively low number of
in-studio segments. While part of this could be attributed to a shorter broadcast running time due to
the position of the broadcast in the daily schedule, the German broadcast of the same game contained
a typically large proportion of in-studio segments. Whatever the reason, the Ghanaian broadcast
focused primarily on conversation between commentators.
The emphasis on talk and discussion present in the observed non-European broadcasts may indicate
a need to further contextualize the game in the minds of the audience. Both Germany and Portugal
appeared to have an effective balance of stories and expert interviews, an observation which lends
itself to the idea that the overall variety (and therefore quality) of World Cup broadcasts in those two
countries exceeds that of their overseas counterparts. While soccer has a long and deep cultural history
in both Germany and Portugal, the game is still relatively new in both Ghana and the United States.
The dominance of the discussion category corresponds to a lack of variety in the other areas, including
pre-packaged stories and expert interviews. This is similar to the findings of Turner, who noticed a
focus on more peripheral and contextual items during the evolution of ESPN’s SportsCenter.29 Within
the United States broadcast in particular, the focus of the broadcast seemed to be on explaining the
specifics of tactics, players and broader tournament implications of the game. This could be seen by
ESPN as necessary due to the nature of the American soccer audience and the particular challenges
of broadcasting an event as multi-layered as the World Cup to an audience whose knowledge likely
does not extend beyond their own national team, and even in that case may only extend to a few key
players. Soccer broadcasting in the United States has come under criticism from soccer experts and
observers, and a member of the US Men’s National Team management structure recently lamented the
methods of television coverage of soccer by North American networks, stating that the networks’ idea
that blanket knowledge of the sport of soccer was actually doing a disservice to the audience because
it allowed inaccurate information about teams, coaches and leagues to filter through to an audience
 SOCCER & SOCIETY   11

that may not know better.30 ESPN’s executive producer for the 2014 World Cup, Jed Drake, admitted
that prior to the 2010 World Cup, there was a degree of indifference towards the event by American
audiences, but both he and British broadcaster Ian Darke felt that the sophistication of the audience
in the United States had grown considerably in recent years.31 Trying to evaluate where exactly that
level of sophistication lies is a challenge that manifests itself in the programming diversity decisions
that stations such as ESPN and Fox must make when covering major soccer events.

Conclusions
The findings of this case study paint a mixed picture of sports broadcasting quality within the con-
fines of World Cup telecasts. On one hand, there appears to be some variety in each of the broadcasts
observed, spanning four different countries. On the other hand, the top five topics comprised 69% of
all the topics explored in the observed segments, and one of those topics was advertising. Similarly,
the top five presentation forms observed comprise 83% of all presentation forms observed, and 14%
of that total came in the form of advertising and/or trailers. It appears that broadcast entities in all of
the observed countries possess the ability to offer a diverse spread of presentation formats and topics,
but often choose to restrict their broadcasts to a core set of approaches.
Observations from this study found nearly identical patterns of broadcasting structures; namely,
a large amount of preliminary reporting, a predominance of live sport commentary and a variety of
presentation forms. There does appear to be a move towards dialogical forms of broadcast presentation,
with emphasis on personalization and atmosphere, taking the form of expert interviews (in European
broadcasts) and commentator discussion (in non-European broadcasts).
This study does contain some limitations. The broadcasts evaluated in this case study all involved
national team of the country whose media was being studied, which could lead to a more extensive
type of coverage than would be found on a standard World Cup broadcast where the home nation was
not involved. Furthermore, the World Cup is a highly visible and popular sports tournament which
occurs every four years, which may cause broadcast entities to devote more airtime and resources
to its production than a standard sports broadcast. Additionally, due to language differences in the
broadcasts, there was no attempt at intercoder reliability for the data gathered, which could indicate the
coding approaches were not exactly the same. Finally, this investigation focused on group stage games
of just one World Cup group, and thereby a small subset of broadcasts. With three out of six matches
being German recordings 50% of our data comes from just one country. Thus, it is not generalizable
to a larger population of content.
However, the implications of the overall results are relevant within the overall field of soccer broad-
casting, particularly when considering the growing interest in both soccer and soccer broadcasting
across the world. Understanding the differences in the composition of sports broadcasts gives scholars
and audiences a greater sense of how things are covered, which naturally leads to larger questions about
why things are covered in those ways, and the cause for differences between coverage approaches in
different countries.
Additionally, the implications of the study and its findings point the way towards similar studies
in other sports and with other types of events. While soccer is the most prominent form of sports
broadcasting in Germany, it would be interesting to examine cross-national broadcast content of sports
such as American football, tennis or auto racing, to see if the same trends and tendencies demonstrated
by national broadcasters examined in this study carry over to the broadcast portrayal of those sports.
Future studies can take this line of inquiry in several promising directions. A broader cross-exam-
ination of multinational broadcasts, while logistically challenging, would yield even more interesting
insights into the variable concept of broadcast quality. Similarly, intra-country analyses of different
sports and their accompanying broadcasts, as well as differences between major sporting networks
(i.e. ESPN vs. Fox) and the quality decisions made within those broadcasts, would provide a broader
base of examination of this particular editorial element.
12   T. HORKY ET AL.

Notes
1.  FIFA.com, ‘FIFA World Cup Group Stages’.
2.  Resnikoff, ‘Brazil 2014 World Cup’.
3.  Dassanayake, ‘One Billion People Set’.
4.  Stelter, ‘As TV Ratings’.
5.  Boi, Formel 1 als mediatisiertes Sportereignis, 10–40; GMM, ‘Formula One Suffering Global’.
6.  Ahmed, ‘BBC Shifts Focus’.
7.  Gerhard and Zubayr, ‘Die Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft 2014’, 448–4; Slater, ‘Olympics and World Cup’.
8.  Haynes and Boyle, ‘The FIFA World Cup’, 87.
9.  Horky, ‘Examining the Structures’.
10. Ibid., 221.
11. Weischenberg, ‘Medienqualitäten’.
12. Hillve et al., ‘Aspects of Quality in TV’, 294–5.
13. Kolb, Vielfalt im Fernsehen.
14. Belsey and Chadwick, ‘Ethics as a vehicle’, 462.
15. See e.g. Barnfield, ‘Soccer, Broadcasting, and Narrative’, 328–30; Gruneau, ‘Making Spectacle’, 138–44; Rowe,
‘Screening the Action’, 145–66; Stoddard, ‘Sport, Television, Interpretation’, 80–5; Whannel, ‘Sport on Television’,
87–103.
16. English, ‘The Same Old Stories’.
17. See note 8 above.
18. Turner, ‘This is SportsCenter’.
19. Ibid., 63.
20. Halliday, ‘Dinosaurs Approaching Extinction’, 185.
21. See note 8 above.
22. See note 8 above.
23. For those unfamiliar with World Cup play, 32 teams qualify for the tournament, and are placed into eight even
groups. One team in each group is ‘seeded’, or protected from being placed in the other groups. These seedings
are generally decided by a coefficient which determines the overall quality of teams which have qualified for
the tournament. For Group G, Germany was the seeded team. The other teams are placed in the group based
upon their home geographical region.
24. All of the coded TV stations owned the complete broadcasting rights to telecast the games live, so we did not
focus on the different situation of broadcasting rights in that countries. For analysis of broadcasting rights see
Evens and Lefever, ‘Watching the Football Game’.
25. See note 8 above.
26. See note 8 above.
27. Boyle, Sports Journalism. Context and Issues, 74.
28. Horky, ‘Examining the Structures’, 230.
29. See note 17 above.
30. Hutcherson, ‘Soccer’s Knowledge Gap’.
31. Wolfley, ‘ESPN Betting on U.S. Soccer Fans’.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Appendix 1
V1 = Game
1. Germany–Portugal
2. Germany – Ghana
3. Germany – United States

V2 = Broadcasting Channel
1. ARD (Germany)
2. ZDF (Germany)
3. RTP (Portugal)
4. TV3 (Ghana)
5. ESPN (United States)

V3 = Position of Sequence
1. Pre-game
2. Half-time
3. Post-game
4. In-game (live broadcast)

V4 = Form of Presentation
1. Presentation of a moderator (including video clips)
2. Commentator (In the arena before and after the match itself)
3. Live game comment (live game reporting of one or more commentators)
4. Interview with experts (e.g. former players, etc.)
5. Story or report made by journalists (including inserts) or switch to a special reporter/commentator
6. Interview (long form: questions and answers; e.g. after the game)
7. Statement (short/flash interview)
8. Talk or discussion (more than two people involved)
9. Extra/additional show (e.g. comedy show, news show – additional to the broadcasting of the game)
10. Trailer: Advertising, promotion for channel’s programming (e.g. advertising for other shows and films)
11. Other (e.g. news)

V5 = Topic
1. Live action
2. Preliminary report (training, line-up, etc.)
3. Follow-up report (highlights, analysis)
4. Atmosphere, fans
5. Portrayal
6. Prominence
7. Referee and Rules
8. History, statistics
9. Venue/stadium
10. Media
11. Cultural issues (e.g. about Brazil)
12. Economic issues (e.g. costs of hosting World Cup)
13. Social issues (e.g. favelas)
14. Health issues (e.g. injured players)
15. Talk (casual discussion with invited guests)
16. Comedy/satire
17. Lottery or promotional elements involving fans
18. Program presentation (event trailer, World Cup trailer
19. Advertising (disclosed block of advertising clips
20. Other

V6 = Duration of Sequence (in seconds)