THE QATSPY® Quapaw Athletic Training Sportswear Performance, Your Outfitter Company
By: Charles W. Boatright, President of THE QATSPY®
The Extinction of the Local Sportscaster– What has led to Minimized Role of the Local Sportscaster and What Could be done to Revive IT?
Growing up in North Little Rock, Arkansas in the 60’s, my two neighbors were Lonnie Gibbons, Sr. and Jim Elder, sportscasters at the local television and radio stations, respectively, in Little Rock, Arkansas (KARK Channel 4 and KARN 920 AM). Local sportscasters, like my neighbors, were the only source for sports on radio in the mornings or on television at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. I tuned in to Jim Elder’s sports show before school while sitting in my Jeep listening to the radio in the parking lot of high school before school each day.
Just recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Noah Newman, sportscaster of the year with WJTV-12 here in Jackson, Mississippi. He came by our hangar for a tour before we had catfish that we fried and did my interview with him, Noah afterwards. Noah and I are shown in the featured image, above in our hangar after the interview.
Paul Finebaum interview on the Extinction of the Local Sportscaster
Yesterday (Wednesday, 22Mar2023) on the Paul Finebaum Show, Paul had as one of his guests, Jon Wertheim, a writer with Sports Illustrated, who had an article in Sports Illustrated about the disappearance of the local sportscaster. Jon’s interview with Paul centered on how the prologue of ESPN in 1979 made local sportscasts to become obsolete, especially with local sportscasts being limited to approx. 2 or 3 minutes at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.
One point that Paul brought up with Jon Wertheim during this interview was that the meteorologists have seemed to be immune to the same effects as local sportscasters have experienced in recent decades. They were wondering why the meteorologists were immune to what sportscasters have experienced during this period.
My Take– One reason for local meteorologists being more relevant is the information that they provide that impacts our daily lives to various degrees. We all are too aware of how severe weather notices and updates, like for tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding and even ice storms can have a direct impact on our lives and property. These notices are on our I-phones that we can get 24/7/365. The information that the meteorologists provide isn’t just for us to get box scores, but for our safety.
Being in aviation, flying over 500-flight hours a year, and also working with a transmission line utility Entergy, as a grid engineer, for over 30 years, you depend on the weather forecast as if your life depended on it, because it did. Weather dictated what we were able to do and what we wouldn’t be able to do. Weather impacted our work and what work we might have to do, due to the impact of severe weather in storm restoration. So this is why Weather and the meteorologists are essential and relevant to us all, more so than sports.
How another Profession Dealt with Technological Change
Here’s a great example of how technological advancements impact professions. Before the introduction of cameras and film on a large scale basis in 1898, artists painted or sketched portraits and landscapes to depict events, especially those of historical events. Even the glass plates imagery of the early to mid 1800’s couldn’t deliver quality that the artist could capture with brush or pin.
To remain relevant after photography, artists during the early 1900’s started another form of art called artistic interpolation, or Impressionists. Some artists, like Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Vincent Willem van Gogh, and Willard Metcalf, and presently my favorite is Monte Toon, had to develop an impression of what they captured.
I don’t have to tell you what some of these Impressionists’ artwork are valued at today, like Pablo Ruiz Picasso and Vincent Willem van Gogh. They knew that they couldn’t compete with photography, so they had to deliver another form of artwork to their public. They used their emotional interpolation to capture their artwork on a personal level, of self expression.
A Local Sportscast that is Relevant to Audiences
The Personal level is what can differentiate the local sportscaster from the national 24/7 sportscasters. Like the Impressionists, local sportscasters need to redefine their broadcast role to their audience. They will never compete with the SEC Network and ESPN of the world, so they will need to do what SEC Network and ESPN can’t do, as they need to continue covering local sports, like high-performing athletes and athletes that overcame barriers and obstacles, before they appear on the radar of national sportscast shows.
They are the only ones with actual film highlights and coverage before these athletes reach the major leagues of their particular sport or profession. But sportscasters can even take it a step further in considering Fitness & Conditioning as the new category of sports. With obesity and with an aging population of baby boomers, fitness and conditioning will be a huge component of these sportscasters’ potential impact on their audiences.
Sportscasters can make their broadcast more relevant by covering in depth health and fitness segments. Believe me, there is a need for health and fitness topics being provided to audiences for awareness. I could write articles for the next 10- years and could never exhaust the number of health and fitness related topics.
With 42% of the American Population that are considered obese, reporting sports of fitness with strength & conditioning is a great step in the direction to make the local sportscast relevant again. Sports are too important to our health and fitness not to be covered by sportscasters. Just consider fitness as The new Sport of Fitness component.
Here’s an example of a sportscaster covering Health & Fitness Topic:
The Impact of Strength/Conditioning Routine
Patrick Johnstone, Sports Director with FOX 40 WDBD here in Jackson, Mississippi, did a story on Strength & Conditioning during their 9 O’clock sportscast on February 23, 2022. This segment was on Clinton’s High School Coach Andrew Rafferty, who is Clinton’s High School Strength and Conditioning Coach. Coach Rafferty was named Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year.
Strength and Conditioning are the only means that I can stay in shape at age 65, as shown below in our hangar, to do fitness training videos and even modeling for my sportswear collection:
Article Highlight:
The Extinction of the Local Sportscaster– What has led to Minimized Role of the Local Sportscaster and What Could be done to Revive IT? The Personal level is what can differentiate the local sportscaster from the national 24/7 sportscasters.
