**3. Interdependence between sports and media organizations**

The intricate relations between sports organizations and media organizations produce an ideal field for the study of cooperative and exploitive rents. Current research focuses mainly on the cooperative and symbiotic dimensions of this relationship (e.g. Greendorfer 1983; Wenner 1989; Lever & Wheeler 1993; Coakley 1999; Weingerten 2003). Accordingly, media industries and sports teams are connected by mutual interest, convenience and need. For the media sport is a source of successful television programs and sales-promoting newspaper sections. Sports broadcasts provide television with high ratings and increased revenues from advertisers and pay-per-view audiences. Sports organizations on their part win essential exposure and royalties, and media coverage helps to increase their popularity (Williams 1994). Both sides depend on one another to maintain their commercial success and their prominent place in popular culture. Koppett (1994) describes this symbiotic interdependence as circular: exposure to sports events increases public interest in these events, which in turn increases the demand for more exposure, and so on.

The interdependence between sports and the media is reciprocal, but it is by no means symmetrical. The dependence of sports organizations on the media is usually higher.

As organizational cooperation and trust build up, symbiosis is fortified. It provides both sides with a synergetic advantage: an advantage which neither of them would have acquired separately. Following Marshall (1949 [1920]), Sorensen (2000) uses the term *Composite Rent* to characterize the difference between the returns of cooperative organizations and the returns they would have obtained in a non-cooperative situation. Marshall gives the example of a mill which is built on a water stream. Both the owner of the mill and the owner of the stream share a rent which otherwise (assuming there is no

Of course, not all interrelations are strictly symbiotic. Burt (1992) examines unequal structural opportunities (an asymmetric exchange market). He claims that, when given a chance, rational players (or organizations) use their structural social advantages to maximize their returns, even when this means taking advantage of others. Therefore, Burt sees rents as a 'zero sum game', an individual asset derived from the exploitation of others, i.e. an *exploitive rent*. Others agree that often (though not always) rents are the outcome of

In this chapter I argue that when speaking of organizational interdependencies most relationships are neither utterly symbiotic nor purely exploitive. Rather, it is more useful to look at symbiosis and exploitation as the two ends of a continuum, Weberian ideal types rather than actual descriptions of social realities. Furthermore, the two are not binary and exclusive phenomena. Rarely is it possible to find sheer ongoing exploitation in interorganizational relations, and immaculate cooperation, it seems, is even scarcer. Following Barnett and Carroll (1987) I contend that elements of symbiosis and exploitation, of cooperation and utilization are usually found side by side in organizational interdependencies. Symbiosis and exploitation share an inherent tension. Interdependent organizations often share a composite rent, but at the same time they are likely to use structural advantages to acquire an exploitive rent. As social conditions change, these structural advantages may also disappear, and sometimes even switch sides. The once

The intricate relations between sports organizations and media organizations produce an ideal field for the study of cooperative and exploitive rents. Current research focuses mainly on the cooperative and symbiotic dimensions of this relationship (e.g. Greendorfer 1983; Wenner 1989; Lever & Wheeler 1993; Coakley 1999; Weingerten 2003). Accordingly, media industries and sports teams are connected by mutual interest, convenience and need. For the media sport is a source of successful television programs and sales-promoting newspaper sections. Sports broadcasts provide television with high ratings and increased revenues from advertisers and pay-per-view audiences. Sports organizations on their part win essential exposure and royalties, and media coverage helps to increase their popularity (Williams 1994). Both sides depend on one another to maintain their commercial success and their prominent place in popular culture. Koppett (1994) describes this symbiotic interdependence as circular: exposure to sports events increases public interest in these

The interdependence between sports and the media is reciprocal, but it is by no means symmetrical. The dependence of sports organizations on the media is usually higher.

alternative location for the mill) would not have existed for either of them.

unequal structural opportunities and exploitation (Sorensen 2000).

exploiting organization will then find itself exploited.

**3. Interdependence between sports and media organizations** 

events, which in turn increases the demand for more exposure, and so on.

Newspapers and television can exist without the broadcasting of sports events, but sports in their current commercial form cannot survive without media financing and exposure (Bellamy 1999). Since the beginning of the 1970s, sports organizations in the West have substantially increased their revenues from selling broadcasting franchises and from sponsorships, while the weight of traditional revenue sources such as ticket selling and public financing gradually decreases (Eastman & Meyer 1989). This increased dependency on the media reduces sports organizations' control over the broadcasting and coverage of the events they "produce" (Goldlust 1987). Sports organizations must adapt to changes in game schedules, the number of games, timeouts and sometimes even in the rules of the game (Coakley 1999). Sports leagues also attempt to promote teams that represent large cities with major television markets, in an attempt to increase broadcasting revenues (Bellamy 1989).

While most studies emphasize media's influence over sports, the inverse dependence is greater than as first meets the eye. The daily press and television owe much of their commercial successes to professional sports. The press has been increasingly covering sports events since the beginning of the twentieth century, and today most worldwide daily newspapers dedicate large sections to sports. In many countries the sports section is the most well read section of the newspapers, and studies estimate that it increases the press' revenues by about 30% (Greendorfer 1983; Lever & Wheeler 1993).

Television is the media organization most dependent on sports. Sports events comprise a major part of the broadcasting schedules of national and cable networks, and many of these networks have established television channels that broadcast sports exclusively. Television networks and media corporations often use sports as a broadcasting anchor; a starting point in their competition with other networks. They see sport broadcasts as a resource for attracting new viewers and retaining old ones. The high ratings of large sport events also make them a major source of revenues from commercial advertisement. Sports fans are mostly men, and advertisers wish to market commodities such as life insurance, cars, computers, financial institutions, credit cards, alcohol and tobacco to this audience (Coakley 1999; Whannel 1992). The universality of sport makes it especially effective in global marketing. Sport talks an international language, which can be understood without the need for interpretations (Zuckerman 1999).

In conclusion, there is a clear symbiotic interdependence between sport and media organizations. Both sides realize that the success of the other leads to their own success and both acquire what Sorensen (2000) calls a composite rent from the relationship. Yet, while most of the literature focuses on the cooperative and symbiotic dimensions of the sports and media nexus, the current study examines the interplay between the exploitive and the cooperative sides of this relationship. I will next show how these two forms of rent invariably coexist in relationships, and also how they may alter over time, as the context of cooperation changes.
