Coronavirus forces, the competitions stopped last March, and the sports channels found themselves deprived of images. Except to play the black screen, it was necessary to furnish well. Obvious solution during confinement: replay. But not just anything, no matter how. “The objective was to unite the family in the face of events that, when they are mentioned, cause an immediate trigger, says Jérôme Saporito, the owner of L’Équipe. We have favored major football matches, and certain legendary stages of the Tour de France. And the hearings exploded. ”
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600,000 viewers for the France-Croatia final of the 2018 World Cup, one of the best scores of the year for the channel, another 300,000 for the traumatic France-Germany of the 1982 World Cup, the public clearly agreed. And the success has been confirmed on all channels, to the point that the confinement ended, the programming making the nostalgic rope vibrate continue (read below). Kingdom of direct and instantaneousness, would sport be caught up in “retromania”?
A reassuring Proust madeleine
“We also asked our viewers to choose what they wanted to watch, especially for tennis matches and cycling, and they got caught up, probably with the desire to taste a Proust madeleine”, says Géraldine Pons, the editorial director of Eurosport. “General interest channels have experienced the same phenomenon, by re-broadcasting films from the French cinematographic heritage. In troubled times, there was obviously a little reassuring side. “
And more than twice. “In a society which lives in permanent doubt, with a questioning of democracy, politics, the scientific system, sport remains a reliable benchmark, with events which have a meaning and present an indisputable character sanctioned by the result », analyzes Pascal Charroin, sports historian at Jean-Monnet University in Saint-Etienne. “During confinement, watching these past competitions was a way to regain normalcy. “
The quest for common emotions
Sport, to beware of “it was better before”? “More than an active nostalgia for a golden age of sport which has in fact never existed, I believe that the current success of reruns lies more in the quest for collective events to share, and in particular through television which was a factor in bringing culture together and homogenizing it in the 1970s and 1980s, analyzes historian Paul Dietschy, professor at the University of Franche-Comté. This ability to gather has exploded with the Internet and the proliferation of screens. “
In any case, Jérôme Saporito highlights this desire for transmission. “The interest of bringing the history of sport to life is also to push the progressive construction of a sports culture in France, still too fragmented, he judges. It is good to explain to the youngest that before MBappé, there was Thierry Henry, and still before, Michel Platini. “ Is the current “retromania” only a question of generation? “On social networks like YouTube, there are a lot of best of or old extracts, and I believe that the youngest also find there a way to fill a possible desire for history”, wants to believe Paul Dietschy.
“Through this success of retro, the question of the common arises, concludes Pascal Charroin. Can we still share common experiences, in particular sports, or was this time of confinement only a break, a parenthesis, in this enchanted sense but without a future? “
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Soccer, cycling and the Olympics
The end of confinement does not mean the end of reruns on sports channels, which slowly regain their usual direct. The Team is continuing its exploration of the Blues’ big games, devoting this month to qualifying, notably with Spain-France in 2012 for access to the 2014 World Cup (June 30 at 8:50 p.m.). On the occasion of the future Coupe de France final between PSG and Saint-Etienne, the chain promises to return to the previous legendary duel between the two teams in 1982. At Eurosport, we resume the 2020 calendar by filling the void left by canceled events. Famous stages of the Great Loop will be broadcast between June 27 and July 19, the original date of the Tour before its postponement at the end of August. Same replacement between the end of July and the beginning of August when the Tokyo Games were to take place. The channel has obtained the right to use the Games archives since 1992 and will offer thematic reruns.
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