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Commercialisation and the Media

Logos on shirts, matches on TV, fans paying to watch: sport is big business. See how sport, sponsors and the media feed each other, and weigh the wins and losses for all four stakeholders.

⏱️ 15 min 🎯 13 activities Teachers Not yet rated Students Not yet rated

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What you'll cover

Sport is big business 💰

Top-level sport is worth **billions**. Companies pay to put logos on shirts, TV channels pay to show matches, and fans pay to watch. This is **commercialisation**: treating sport as a way to **make money**. It brings big **advantages**, but real **drawbacks** too, and they differ for each group involved.

The language of the deal 🔑

Four ideas run through the topic:

What does it mean? 🛒

What does the commercialisation of sport mean?

  • Treating sport as a way to make money, through sponsorship and the media
  • Playing sport purely for personal fitness
  • Banning all advertising from sporting events
  • Making every sport free to watch for everyone

Match each stakeholder to an advantage 🔗

  • The sponsor
  • The sport
  • The player
  • The spectator
  • Gains brand exposure and higher sales from the association
  • Receives income to improve facilities and fund the grassroots
  • Earns higher wages and lucrative sponsorship deals
  • Can watch far more sport, including live from home

The golden triangle 🔺

Sport, business and the media form a golden triangle. Each one feeds the other two, which is why commercialisation has grown so fast.

Who is NOT a stakeholder? 👥

Edexcel names four stakeholders. Select the TWO options that are NOT among them.

  • The match official
  • The stadium groundskeeper
  • The sponsor
  • The spectator

Four stakeholders, not five ⚠️

Edexcel names exactly **four** stakeholders: the **sponsor**, the **sport**, the **player/performer** and the **spectator**. Do not add the official as a fifth, as that is another board's framing. For full marks, give a stakeholder-**specific** advantage AND disadvantage in context. For example, the spectator gains far more live coverage as an advantage, but pays subscription fees and faces TV-dictated kick-off times as a disadvantage.

Complete the summary 🧩

_____ means treating sport as a way to make money. A business that pays a team in return for advertising is a _____. Sport, business and the _____ form the golden _____, each feeding the others. Edexcel names four _____: the sponsor, the sport, the player and the spectator.

Commercialisation sponsor media triangle stakeholders official referee merchandise amateur profit

Round the golden triangle 🔄

An interactive activity.

Weigh up the deal ⚖️

An interactive activity.

The player's downside 🎽

Why can commercialisation be a DISADVANTAGE for a top player or performer?

  • It brings pressure, loss of privacy and demands to promote sponsors
  • It forces them to play their sport for free
  • It makes them completely unknown to the public
  • It has no downside for players at all

Spot the disadvantages 🖍️

An interactive activity.

Good for the spectator? ✍️

An interactive activity.