The media or news industry has undergone a huge makeover during the last few years. From stiff collared news readers and reporters to blue and boring sets, to repetitive show formats all have seen an enormous amount of change. Along with the formats the complete physical appearance of shows has undergone makeovers. As older and much more established media networks have revamped their look, there are a variety of new channels or news sites which have sprouted to meet the needs of the ceaseless requirement for news, whether it is in the area of current affairs, news, entertainment or physical activities such as 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 regarding the variety of sports that are being played across the world. Sports, too, as being a physical exercise has evolved and has gained a wider reach due to the network of the media or news providers.
These days it is not only the traditional sports such as 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 fan base. There are a variety of people that practice and participate 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 some of the offshoots of this media change. Together with the internet transforming into a popular source of entertainment, physical sports have already been translated into virtual games in the form of fantasy sports. Now, everyone has the opportunity to play their favorite games that are modeled around 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 that the sport is based on.
So like MLB baseball has 162 games being played in one season, fantasy baseball too has 162 games that shall be played through 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 of 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 out of this sports world.
ESPN has additionally taken the initiative of getting X Games popular. X Games are series major action sports championships which are organized and broadcast by ESPN. These games began in 1995 and also have gained its group of fans since.
Owing to the diversities in the games there are 2 championships held every year; one during summer the other during winter covering the summer and winter sports categories respectively. The participants vie for that gold, silver and bronze medals along with the prize money award. ESPN has been the live broadcaster of such games and can be considered as pioneers on this genre of sports broadcasting.