Nowhere else in the world is information more keenly sought by the public than in sport. Millions of people all over the world wait for news of their team or their favourite sporting star. The passion for sport is incomparable to almost any other walk of life. Millions of columns will be written each year charting the rise and fall of sports teams and sporting stars for the delectation of the fans everywhere.

Sporting news can capture the imagination of an entire country and unite people from varied backgrounds behind a common cause. Sport has the unenviable task of representing society to itself. The greater public looks to sport for heroes, for villains and for vindication of their own beliefs. These are not beliefs that consider religion but beliefs about the way society works, the interaction between individuals in society and the way society interacts with them.

Sport can be a mouthpiece, a way of expressing a message or an opportunity to showcase everything that is good about a country or a region or an individual. It can highlight the inequalities inherent in society on a global, national and regional scale.

These are just some of the reasons why so many people follow sport other than its pure entertainment. These are also the same reasons that so many people work in the sporting news industry providing opinions and reports on what the public have already seen. For any sport you follow there will be a dedicated sporting news channel and these can either be mainstream or independent depending on what you want to hear.