The media or news industry has undergone a huge makeover over the past few years. From stiff collared news readers and reporters to blue and boring sets, to repetitive show formats all have experienced a tremendous amount of change. Along with the formats the entire physical aspect of shows has undergone makeovers. As older and much more established media networks have revamped their look, there are a number of brand new channels or news sites which have sprouted to cater to the constant demand for news, be it in the field of current affairs, news, entertainment or physical activities like sports.
Sports networks have emerged as one of the most important segments from the media industry. Sports enthusiasts coming from all over the world are searching for a daily feed of information and news in connection with the number of sports that are being played across the world. Sports, too, as a physical activity has evolved and has gained a wider reach owing to the network of the media or news providers.
These days it is not just the conventional sports including baseball, football, basketball, rugby etc that are popular but unconventional sports as action sports such as surfing, skateboarding, rock and rock climbing, bungee jumping, sky diving etc have also found their group of followers. There are a variety of people who practice and take part in these adrenalin pumping extreme sports, thus increasing its popularity and encouraging several media and news networks to come up and cover these events.
Fantasy sports, too, are one of the offshoots of this media change. Together with the internet becoming a popular source of entertainment, physical sports have been translated into virtual games in the form of fantasy sports. Now, everyone has the opportunity to play their preferred games which are modeled on the lines of professional sports including football, baseball, basketball, cricket etc. These games have global championships that happen to be played mirroring the game pattern which the sport is based on.
So like MLB baseball has 162 games being played in one season, fantasy baseball too has 162 games that will be played during the MLB season. Two media networks which are currently extremely popular in the fantasy games circuit are ESPN and Yahoo Sports. These two networks provide all the news, games statistics, scores and player along with team standings. ESPN network even comes up with a fantasy sports newsletter that covers all of the action from this sports world.
ESPN has additionally taken the initiative of making X Games popular. X Games are series major action sports championships that are organized and broadcast by ESPN. These games began in 1995 and also have gained its group of fans since.
Owing to the diversities within the games there are 2 championships held every year; one during summer and one during wintertime covering the summer and winter sports categories respectively. The participants vie for the gold, silver and bronze medals together with the prize money award. ESPN has been the live broadcaster of these games and can be regarded as as pioneers on this genre of sports broadcasting.