Refreshments and snacks will be served after the conclusion of the address.

Abstract

In the year 490 BC, Greek defenders secured a decisive victory over a massive Persian invasion force. According to legend, a report runner named Pheidippides ran almost 40 kilometres to bring news of the Greek victory to Athenians who were eagerly awaiting the outcome of the battle. With his last breath, Pheidippides famously exclaimed 'Rejoice, we conquer!' and then, over-exerted, his power spent, Pheidippides collapsed and died.

It is perhaps more than fitting that the legend of this report runner – the fastest news medium of his day – would serve as the inspiration for one of the headline events at the modern Summer Olympic Games. The event, named after the battlefield where the Greeks scored their decisive victory, has become known as the marathon and today it celebrates the heroic feat of Pheidippides. Not only did Pheidippides exude all the qualities associated with sportsmen today – masculinity, honour, tenacity, perseverance, determination, self-sacrifice and team spirit – but his story and the race it inspired also highlights a link that has probably always existed between sport and the media.

From prehistoric rock art that apparently depicts scenes of ancient people participating in sprints, swimming, archery and wrestling in front of spectators, to modern sports broadcasts that are beamed instantaneously to homes across the globe, it seems that sport and the media have always had a symbiotic relationship in which self-interest could be best served by serving others. It is therefore probably no coincidence that the arrival of the first electronic media in the 18th century coincided with the rise of modern sport in the sense we know today, or that the rise of broadcast media gave rise to the first superstars of sport.

In the course of the 20th century, this symbiotic relationship would give rise to multinational media houses and powerful international sports federations – a development which Sut Jhally called the sports-media complex. It is a symbiosis that has shaped the destinies of people and nations, that commands respect from even the most powerful among us, that endures despite questionable legal foundations, that defies accountability and regulation but shamelessly protects self-interests, that continues to cement stereotypes of race – 'white men can't jump' – of masculinity and femininity, of virtue and vice.

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