Sporting narrative is unparalleled. Every game and season contains a wealth of storylines. Each player is their own version of a walking anomaly. Those stories bring millions together and compel us to feel.
Sport may be one of the last shared cultural languages, capable of unifying almost anyone, regardless of gender, race, religion, or political beliefs.
“Sport doesn’t live in society simply as performance,” TAPE TUESDAY guest Dr. Daniel T. Durbin says. “We have to communicate about it.”
As time, society, technology, and culture evolve, the ways we tell sports stories — and, in turn, how they’re consumed — evolve, too.
“You have a whole generation now,” Durbin says, “for whom sport is not defined as: No. 1) the NFL, No. 2) everything else, and No. 3) anything that’s not American. It really has changed the sports experience, and back to what you’re interested in [regarding the role games like 82-0 and GeoSports play in the sports media landscape] as well. One of the things is that they create community. So much of what we can do now with sports is frame it around whatever our momentary interest is.”
This week, Dr. Durbin, director of USC’s Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media, and Society, guides us through a fun examination of how community and narrative are inseparable elements of sport that make it an essential part of society. He explains why games like 82-0 and GeoSports have a role in today’s evolving sports media landscape, and represent a noteworthy evolution in how fans gather, participate, and experience sports together.
HOUSEKEEPING
Cover Art: Basketball (Convention Hall, Philadelphia) (1935), by Michael Leone (American, 1906-1982)
Music: “Loosin’ Up” by Wendy Marcini; “Ruby” by Ennio Mano
Host/Produced/Edited: Kaelen
