The Failure of the Sport7 TV-channel: Controversies in a Business Network

During 1996, TV viewers in the Netherlands witnessed the rise and fall of Sport7: a dedicated sports TV channel. Apparently, Sport7 did not succeed to become part of the business network of television and sports. This paper describes and explains why the venture failed. It builds on earlier insights from research on the outcomes of joint ventures and the business networks perspective. These insights are combined and utilized within the framework of the theory of social becoming (Sztompka, 1991). As such, for a new venture like Sport7, the outcome depends on the settlement of a number of controversies that arise with the establishment of a new actor in an existing business network. In the case of Sport7, the settlement of these controversies appeared to go against this new venture, ultimately leading to the demise of this new TV channel.