Sport and media has a long history of relationship. This relationship has resulted to a marriage with tremendous benefits for both media and sport. As a result of their commercialization, sport itself as well as sports men and women and media has continued to grow globally.
In spite of the increase in sport participation in Gombe, sports administrators hardly give attention to the importance of the media in promoting sporting activities and the mutuality has not received attention from the media as well. Thus, most of the media organizations we have in Gombe do not give room for sports program of any type, if they do, it is mostly not more than thirty minutes and mostly not effectively programmed in such a way that the audience will enjoy the content of the program talk more of knowing the roles and contributions of the media to grass root sports development in Gombe.
I once summited a proposal for sports program in one of the media organizations around, with the intention to mostly focus on grass root sports promotion, the organization immediately rejected the proposal with no reason attached.
GMC, GMTV, NTA, AIT/RAY POWER, PROGRESS RADIO, AMANA RADIO, JEWEL TREASURE NEWSPAPER are the media organizations existing in Gombe state but to my surprise, only one of these media give indebt analysis of sports within and outside the state. apart from the platform created by GMTV to present a midweek sports program on Wednesdays which is still surviving on the sacrifices of some sport loving individuals who always give their time to analyze sports from the grass root. They do not present programs that will promote sport participation.
However, I often do not blame these media organizations, as only few individual has shown interest in promoting sports programs in the media. We have only few registered sports writers in the state (one or two).
In other states, on different media, we see editors of different categories, sports has become one of the strongest of them, sports programs presented for more than one hour on daily basis with indebt analysis of how to promote sport. In my state reverse is the case.
I have invited some sports stake holders on different occasions to various sports programs in media but only few who know the importance of media in sports development usually comes. For some, it is just a waste of time, energy and resources.
I’m very much aware of the fact that the media exist on revenue generated that is where we will need sponsorship for our sports programs. Our private and independent business organizations should give it a trial by sponsoring most of these sports programs on the media. I think lack of knowing the role and importance of the media also affect our businesses were we hardly hear of any advertisement on our media organizations and advertisement is one of the backbone of any business outfit.
It is time we change our attitudes toward sports promotion through the media if really we wish to promote sports.
The media organizations have to provide platforms for sports news and programs on daily or weekly basis with knowledgeable sports editors who have passion for sports and journalism. Someone once told me in a media organization that I do not know anything in the media apart from sports reporting. My reply to him was ‘that is what I chose to specialize in’.
Our media organizations can also help in promoting sports by organizing local sports competitions as well as enlightening the government and relevant stakeholders to invest in sports.
We hear of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria SWAN organizing sports competitions in different states but that has never happen in Gombe. This is a wakeup call for us Sports Writers in Gombe to start doing our own part by organizing sport tournaments, let us not only stay in the media and talk.
Excessive attention is given to football on our media sport programs; it will be good if we also give room for other sports during our programs.
Sport program presenters must be knowledgeable about the work, registered with the regulatory bodies as well as having passion for the job and sports in general.
Just like in any other part of journalism, the fake ones exist; we must do our best to get rid of them in Gombe because most of them are after their meal tickets.
Our sports stakeholders must accords media the necessary attention its demands and give sports programs priority so as to make things easy for the presenters. Most of these stake holders usual hide information that is not worth hiding, what for? We do not know.
The relationship between sports and media has grown overtime so much that the two are inseparable were sports wouldn’t have been where it is today if not for the media and the media benefiting much from sports. Imagine playing the FIFA World Cup, Olympic games and other sports tournaments without media coverage that will be just a mere recreational activity.
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