Sports 24/7 (1st Entry)

For my first blog post, I wanted to focus on how the growth of information technology specifically the internet has changed even the most mundane of activities. I’m a big sports fan although not having an ounce of athletic ability. Being a fan in 2009 is a lot different and definitely better than what it was when I was growing up.

I remember back in high school the best you could do was for someone to text you the results of a game and to the replay at night. Nowadays, you can watch a sports events on your cellphone or immediately watch replay a buzzer beater shot or 4^th down conversion almost instantly over the internet.

Technology has empowered the ordinary sports fan. One can participate in any number of fantasy leagues. The fan has the choice whose sports columns to read and podcasts to listen to. The fan can even make his voice heard in any number of forums or his own blog.

This has resulted to a greater level of analysis and discourse on how a game itself is played. For example, coaches and referees are more and more scrutinized. Statistics is recorded and available over the internet on the performances of a coach, athlete, and referee. There are even blogs whose focus is computing the statistical probabilities of a given play or course of action.

Technology has brought athletes ever closer to the masses. Athletes are now followed in the same way as other celebrities. Sites such as deadspin focuses on both the on field and off field activities of athletes. As any fan knows, rumor-mongering is sometimes even more fun than watching the games themselves. Savvy athletes have also harnessed the power of the internet by creating their own blogs and embracing twitter. It has happened that players even tweet during halftime or first related the news of the firing of their coach over twitter.

Like anything, too much of something is a bad thing. Questions of privacy and the accuracy of news reporting are secondary considerations to first getting the scoop. Nobody can deny however that the growth of communication technology has resulted in the growth of sports itself, and in that case everybody wins.