While the growth of the sports media industry in the digital and social world cannot be denied, the idea of communicating about sport is as old as the sports themselves. Sports-like activities, such as hunting, sprinting and wrestling, believed to be the oldest sports in the world, were first captured in the form of cave paintings. These depictions can be traced as far back as 15,300 years ago in Lascaux, France (Zumoff and Negin 2015).

Likewise, recordings from Homer's Iliad (Book 23) from the eighth century BC include detailed accounts of participants competing in the funeral games for Patroclus, including stories of the participants, outcomes and even disputed outcomes (Zumoff and Negin 2015). Victory, too, has always been enjoyed and communicated proudly. Records of Greek poets, such as Pindar writing victory odes for Olympic Games’ participants, date back as far as 518– 438 BC (Zumoff and Negin 2015).

As such, there is evidence to suggest sport, competition or the pursuit of physical and athletic excellence has always been of interest to society. Not surprisingly, as society and technology continued to progress, so too did how games and sports were communicated.

By the mid-1700s, newspapers across the world began to include sports reports and scores in their publications. One of the first recorded publications to do this was the Racing Calendar in Britain, which provided free publicity, described events, published results and provided prizes, management, judges and referees for sporting contests (Cashman 2002).

Importantly, this coincided with the advent of organised sport, which emerged in Britain around the time of early industrialisation. To ensure their workers were fit, healthy, ready for work and not participating in dangerous activities that would diminish their output, capitalist owners made a conscious effort to structure and organise play (Rowe 2004a). Thus, sports began to be codified. Competitions emerged between different teams, schools, working groups and social organisations. These were of great interest to the local community and, more broadly, the general public who paid particular attention to the outcomes of these games (Rowe 2004a).