Determinants of sports coverage: Newsworthiness in US media coverage of foreign athletes during the London 2012 Olympic Games

Abstract

This study examined US media coverage of foreign nations and their athletes during the 2012 London Olympic Games. An analysis of NBC primetime telecasts and sports coverage in The New York Times found that foreign nations and their athletes were not significantly affected by any given nation’s performance during the Olympics. However, coverage of the Olympics was actually based on several contextual factors. While a few elite countries’ dominance in the Olympics secured US media coverage, military expenditures, linguistic proximity to the United States, and the number of sports celebrities and gold medals won often predicted a country’s visibility in US media.