Change in the physical forms of media or sports news providers.
The media or news industry has undergone a huge makeover over the past several years. From stiff collared news readers and reporters to blue and boring sets, to repetitive show formats all have seen an enormous amount of change. Along with the formats the entire physical appearance of shows has undergone makeovers. As older and more established media networks have revamped their look, there are a number of new channels or news sites that have sprouted to cater to the ceaseless requirement for news, be it in the field of current affairs, news, entertainment or physical activities such as sports.
Sports networks have emerged as one of the most significant segments from the media industry. Sports enthusiasts coming from all over the world are looking for a daily feed of news and information in connection with the variety of sports that are being played across the world. Sports, too, as a physical activity has evolved and has now gained a wider reach owing to the network of the media or news providers.
These days it is not only the conventional sports including baseball, football, basketball, rugby etc that are popular but unconventional sports as action sports such as surfing, skateboarding, rock and mountain climbing, bungee jumping, sky diving etc have likewise found their group of followers. There are a number of people that practice and participate in these adrenalin pumping extreme sports, thus increasing its popularity and encouraging several media and news networks to come up and cover these events.
Fantasy sports, too, are one of the offshoots of this media change. With the internet becoming a popular source of entertainment, physical sports have been translated into virtual games in the form of fantasy sports. Now, people have the opportunity to play their favorite games that are modeled around the lines of professional sports including football, baseball, basketball, cricket etc. These games have global championships that are played mirroring the overall game pattern that the sport is based on.
So like MLB baseball has 162 games being played in one season, fantasy baseball too has 162 games that will be played during the MLB season. Two media networks which are currently extremely popular in the fantasy games circuit are ESPN and Yahoo Sports. Both of these networks provide all the news, games statistics, scores and player along with team standings. ESPN network even comes up with a fantasy sports newsletter that covers all the action from this sports world.
ESPN has also taken the initiative of making X Games popular. X Games are series major action sports championships that are organized and broadcast by ESPN. These games began in 1995 and also have gained its fan base since.
Due to the diversities within the games there are two championships held every year; one during summer the other during winter covering the summer and winter sports categories respectively. The participants vie for the gold, silver and bronze medals together with the prize money award. ESPN continues to be the live broadcaster of such games and can be considered as pioneers in this genre of sports broadcasting.