In the new era of sports media, the fan scrolling on their phone plays a big part of the story.
Prior to this class I thought I had a fairly well rounded understanding of sports media. I post on X quite a bit, and I follow trends and patterns to try to push my content amongst the successful. But these three months of COMM462 have really forced me to zoom out from my own perspective and understand why things actually work in sport media, and more importantly, where the industry is heading.
A concept that really stuck with me was the new role of fans with social media and online voices. The idea that audiences are no longer just consuming sport content, but producing it, sharing it, and shaping new narratives alongside the traditional journalists and broadcast networks. For example, every post from Mariners fans on X and instagram is an entry into the sport communication ecosystem.
The assignments didn’t feel like busywork. They felt like genuine previews of the sports media professional environment.
A direct example of this is our sports professional penpal assignment. Connecting with ODU sports social media director gave me an inside look at what sport communication actually looks like on a daily basis. So many layers to it, the digital presence, approval process, brand deals, etc. My blog entry “The Quest – Blueprint for Blue & Silver” was built around real recruiting processes and seemed to be the closest thing to real life that a class assignment could offer. The project left me with a much better understanding of what athletic departments constantly handle. I also really enjoyed the sports narrative assignment, where I wrote “Hunt and Gather: A deadline that carried Seattle into October” for my blog. This assignment allowed me to take a deep dive into my own writing style and showcase a recent event that I believe heavily impacted an entire region of baseball. It took a lot of research, rough drafts, and style changes, to find what really fit me.
The media landscape piece of the course, understanding how traditional broadcast rights, streaming platforms, and social media are intersecting, is something I’ll carry forward too. As someone trying to build a brand in the athlete health and performance space, knowing how distribution works, and how attention gets grabbed across platforms, is not academic knowledge. It’s operational knowledge. It changes how I think about where I post, when I post, and what format I use to reach the people I want to reach.
This class helped me clarify something I had a suspicion about, which is dissolving line between athlete and media figure. The most visible and popular athletes today are not just good at their respective sport, they are good at telling their own story. This class has helped me develop that skillset and understand content development and strategy. I know how to reach out to a professional and build a relationship before I need something from them.
The sport media environment is loud and fast, especially in the new age of social media coverage. But I now feel more equipped than ever to operate in it, not just as a fan or athlete, but as someone with something worth saying.