Football, television, and the state in Argentina: a tale of monopolies, patrimonies, and populisms

ALABARCES, PABLO

Communication and Sport

De Gruyter-Mouton

Lugar: Boston/Berlin; Año: 2021; p. 561 - 576

Discussions on the relationship between televised sports and politics have regularly focused on ?manipulation of audiences? and on issues of access to broadcasting of sports and the civil ?rights? of audiences and publics. In Argentina, these questions and debates have been ignited in the context of the new monopolistic structure of a privatized national media sector that threatened access to live, free-toair reception of 2002 FIFA World Cup. In response to these developments and other contemporary political pressures, in 2009, the government of Argentina (re)nationalized football broadcasting, thus marking the return of all first division matches to the public network, called the Television Publica [Public TV]. In 2017, a new government cancelled the experience and (re) privatized the broadcasting of the matches. In 2014 and 2018, the Television Publica broadcast the most important sport events for Argentine audiences: the FIFA World Cup Finals of Brazil and Russia, respectively. The broadcasts were made under different governments with opposed political orientations - populist the former, conservative the latter. This chapter works, therefore, on the relationship between soccer, television, and politics and its transformations in the last two decades in Argentina. The radical interventions of the governments conform a new landscape that demands a cultural, social, and political analysis.