Prof. Dr. Michael Schaffrath, Head of the Institute of Media and Communications, commented this week on the various media topics on BR television and in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
In the program "Blickpunkt Sport" on April 7, 2024, Prof. Schaffrath complained in the film contribution entitled "FC Bayern and the media" that everything in soccer reporting has become "faster, more glaring and also more merciless". The internet and social media platforms offer clubs and players the opportunity to become more independent of print and broadcast media and to inform the public and fans themselves. According to the habilitated communication scientist, this reduces the chance for traditional mass media to fulfill their "central normative function of transmitting information" in the conventional form. "Other functions such as criticism and control are now becoming increasingly important for the traditional media and are being exercised more vehemently by them."
Of course, the clubs and individual players do not like this. The most prominent critics in the soccer business now include TV experts such as Didi Hamann and Lothar Matthäus. Prof. Schaffrath says this is nothing new, as they have been on television for over 40 years. "What is new, however, is that some headline-driven experts are much more involved in the personnel policy of clubs and are much more hypercritical of individual people."
A nice side effect of the BR appearance for university lecturer Schaffrath: The film clip was produced by his former TU student Florian Eckl and his former TU student Julia Scharf presented the program.
Prof. Schaffrath in an FAZ interview on broadcasting rights costs on television
In the FAZ newspaper of April 5, 2024, Prof. Schaffrath commented on the issue of broadcasting rights costs in television in the article "Die Fußballisierung ins Abseits stellen." The Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) is currently tendering for the Bundesliga licenses from the 2025/26 to 2028/29 season. The head of the Institute of Media and Communications believes that ARD and ZDF must carefully examine how much fee money they want to spend on soccer in the future. This is because it is "neither a socio-political requirement nor required by media law" to use fee money for soccer. This is because the terms "sport" or "soccer" are not even mentioned in the so-called essential service mandate that public broadcasters have to fulfill according to the Interstate Media Treaty. Prof. Schaffrath also criticizes the "footballization of sports reporting" and believes it is also economically unreasonable "to use citizens' fee money to support the salaries of a few hundred professional footballers, often in the tens of millions."
To the TV-report in BR24
To the interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Michael Schaffrath
Institute of Media and Communications
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 München
phone: 089 289 24639
e-mail: michael.schaffrath(at)tum.de
Text: Bastian Daneyko
Photo: Bayerischer Rundfunk