Field of Soaps: Rupert V. Kerry as Masculine Melodrama

Abstract

Sport is an increasingly valuable commodity in the global media industry. For instance, in 1980 NBC paid what was then the astonishing sum of $72 million for the rights to televise the summer Olympics. In 1995 the same network expended $715 million on the 2000 Olympics, $793 million on the 2004 Olympics, and $894 million on the 2008 Olympics (all figures in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted). These huge sums were committed just for the U.S. TV rights, with the sites for the 2004 and 2008 games yet to be decided. It was widely rumored that NBC made this costly deal with the International Olympic Committee in order to shut out Rupert Murdoch, whose $1 billion bid for worldwide TV rights to the 2000 Olympics had earlier been rejected. There is no one in the media world who has a greater commitment to the commercial exploitation of TV sport than Murdoch. Although his Fox Network ranks only fourth in the United States behind ABC, CBS, and NBC in terms of audiences, it currently has the five-year telecast rights for football ($2.2 billion) and hockey ($221 million). Outside the United States, Murdoch controls or part owns the TV rights to British and Euro soccer, rugby league, rugby union, West Indian and Pakistani cricket, and American football via British-based Foxtel (40 percent Murdoch-owned); premier league soccer, boxing, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, racing, major tennis events, American football, and British and American basketball via British-based BSkyB (40 percent Murdoch-owned); American football via German-based Vox (49.9 percent Murdoch-owned); golf, tennis, Australian-rules football, rugby union, motor racing, and the 1996 and 2000 Olympics via Australian-based Channel Seven (15 percent Murdoch-owned); and Chinese