While growing up with two channels and if it rained we got three, none of those channels however gave my siblings and I the opportunity to see some type of sport on a 24/7 basis. The only way I got my sports information was either through school the next day or in the daily newspaper. I seemed to be always a day behind everyone when it came to current events in sports. If it was not for the weekly Sports Illustrated prescription I got as a kid, I would have little knowledge of any athletes. As I got older things started to change, by the time I got into junior high I had DIRECTV at my fingertips and over 50 channels thus giving me the opportunity to watch sports on a consistent 24/7 basis. This changed things for me as I was able to keep up with transactions and a variety of different other sporting events going on around the country and sometimes the world.
Ever since the new millennium technology has just seemed to be improving at a rapid pace for individuals within a society. From the start of sports communication sports fans had to what days sometimes to get the paper to find out what was going on in the sports world, now individuals have the opportunity at their fingertips. The internet changed everything as now everyone with a smartphone can get up to the minute updates on what is going on around various leagues around the world. Twitter has also changed the way individuals view sports, as now athletes and other celebrities are given the opportunity to interact with fans on a second to second basis. Anyone can really have a Twitter account to update whatever it is they are doing or if they want to promote anything they have that capability. An example of this is Terrell Owens he has promoted a variety of his television appearances to try and get fans to view the show. Other applications have been beneficial to everyone as ESPN, and other sports networks have their own smartphone applications which gives followers the opportunity to learn about the team or a league itself.
While in high school each year there was a high school football magazine that came out ranking each high school team and some of the top athletes in the state and country and where they were heading after high school. Now with the internet college recruiting has changed entirely as high school student-athletes are able to post their highlights on the internet and colleges themselves can keep track of potential recruits (Harlan, 2011). There are a variety of recruiting sites that help with colleges recruiting athletes and it also is beneficial for the athletes to get their names out there to potential colleges who are interested in the athlete. Coaches and college athletic staff no longer have to make long trips to watch a high school game now that they can just get on the internet to find out what type of athlete they are looking into. High school student athletes would post various things on their blogs, twitter, or facebook accounts about how their college visits went. This information becomes public and various recruiting websites use this to post the student-athletes college rankings after this. Even after the season some high school student-athletes are seen as small time celebrities as now there are a variety of national all-star games on ESPN and other channels. This does add more pressure on the high school student themselves as some are unsure on where they want to go and they have thousands of individuals who join their personal webpage to try and persuade them to attend a certain college.
References: Haran, C. (2011, January 31). New technology changes high school football
recruiting. Retrieved from http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/New-
technology-changes-high-school-football-recruiting-02977085
http://www.espn.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.ncsasports.org/
http://football.uaallamerica.com/
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