Media influence on sports <br /><br />Mazin Hadi Kzar<br />Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department, Al-Mustaqbal University College, 51001 Hillah, Babil, Iraq<br />[email protected]<br />For the past years the media has had a big effect on society. Many people rely on the media for news or sports coverage but they don’t realize that the media may influence people’s beliefs or way of behaving. The media covers sports in order to provide information to the fans but they also can create fake news to spark controversy in sports. The world of sports is largely affected by the media as they are a big topic to talk about throughout all kinds of media. Although the media can provide information of sports to fans, it can also create positive and negative conditions for the athletes. The media’s portrayal of sports creates rivalries between teams and players which increases competitiveness, damages professional relationships, and Sometimes a rivalry can become intensely heated and it may become violent. In the sport of soccer one of the most anticipated matches of the year is none other than Real Madrid vs Barcelona. These two teams are great teams and are the sport’s biggest rivals. Before the match is played the media heats up the rivalry by reporting that the one team is trash talking or undervaluing the other team. At first it is taken lightly as just a publicity stunt but when the players overhear the news, they get over competitive. When the match is being played there is always physical fights between players and it gets out of hand. Not one of these rival matches has passed that a player doesn’t get ejected from the game. <br />In conclusion, this proves how the media plays a large role on the player’s mentality when going into the game and can also cause them to behave in certain ways. <br />Keywords: media,influence, sports.