Pregnant with anticipation

Abstract

Since television sport reached its mature form around the start of the 1980s, formal conventions have remained relatively constant. The containing of the live event within the show format, with its preview, intermediate discussion and post-mortem; the slow motion repetition of moments of peak excitement from multiple angles; the post-action interviews; are familiar elements in the television sport lexicon. Foregrounding of stars appears un-exceptional, a routinized element in celebrity culture, in which fashion, glamour, fitness, gossip, Hollywood cinema, lifestyle television and sports stadia converge. Indeed it is difficult to imagine the cultural form of sport before television became its defining medium. This article examines sporting moments, performers and performances which, although subsequently acquiring iconic status, emerged in the dawn of television sport, and analyses the threshold moment of liminality in which ‘television sport’ was formed. It concludes with a warning about the problems posed by reconstruction of the past.