There was a time when sports cov­er­age sim­ply meant show­ing the game. The cam­era fol­lowed the ball, a com­men­ta­tor called the ac­tion, the fi­nal whis­tle blew and every­one moved on to the next fix­ture.

Cov­er­age was large­ly about record­ing events. The game hap­pened, and the me­dia's role was to cap­ture it. To­day, that has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Cov­er­age has be­come part of sport it­self. In some ways, it may even shape sport just as much as what hap­pens on the field.

I found my­self think­ing about this re­cent­ly while watch­ing crick­et cov­er­age on Wil­low by Cricbuzz. For those un­fa­mil­iar with it, Wil­low has be­come one of the biggest ded­i­cat­ed crick­et plat­forms in North Amer­i­ca. It car­ries some of the largest events in the sport, the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL), In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) com­pe­ti­tions, in­ter­na­tion­al match­es and leagues from around the world.

The IPL alone is one of the great­est sport­ing spec­ta­cles any­where. Mil­lions tune in across con­ti­nents to watch Sunil Nar­ine, Ja­son Hold­er, Vi­rat Kohli, Chen­nai Su­per Kings, Mum­bai In­di­ans and the stars of world crick­et. It is fast-paced, colour­ful, loud and filled with dra­ma. We still get to see Kieron Pol­lard and Dwayne Bra­vo per­form­ing their roles as coach­es.

Yet while watch­ing these games, some­thing small caught my at­ten­tion. Across the bot­tom of the screen moved a tick­er. Noth­ing un­usu­al there. But among the up­dates from glob­al crick­et were names and scores from small­er com­pe­ti­tions. Men­tions from re­gion­al tour­na­ments. Do­mes­tic fix­tures. Even com­pe­ti­tions in­volv­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go clubs and fes­ti­vals. Queen's Park, KFC Clarke Road Unit­ed or Preysal Sports Club. And the Trinidad T20 Fes­ti­val.

To many peo­ple, it would prob­a­bly have passed un­no­ticed. Just an­oth­er line of text mov­ing across the screen. But I kept think­ing about it. Be­cause while the IPL oc­cu­pied cen­tre stage, those small­er com­pe­ti­tions had still found a place in­side one of crick­et's largest broad­casts. And that mat­ters.

Those lit­tle men­tions qui­et­ly send a pow­er­ful mes­sage: "Your crick­et ex­ists too."

That line mov­ing across the bot­tom of a tele­vi­sion screen may not seem like much, but think about who could be watch­ing. Some­one sit­ting in New York from T&T. A for­mer play­er liv­ing in Toron­to. Fam­i­ly mem­bers in Lon­don. A scout in Flori­da. An agent or a spon­sor. Or sim­ply some­one who had no pre­vi­ous con­nec­tion to T&T crick­et at all.

Sud­den­ly, what was once lo­cal is no longer on­ly lo­cal. That is the pow­er of me­dia to­day. Cov­er­age cre­ates vis­i­bil­i­ty and vis­i­bil­i­ty cre­ates in­ter­est. In­ter­est cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ty. And op­por­tu­ni­ty can even­tu­al­ly cre­ate growth.

It made me won­der what that same phi­los­o­phy could mean for foot­ball here in T&T. We of­ten place our fo­cus on the biggest oc­ca­sions—na­tion­al team match­es, World Cup qual­i­fiers, in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments.

And nat­u­ral­ly so. Those are the events that bring na­tion­al at­ten­tion. But what if cov­er­age ex­tend­ed be­yond the 90 min­utes and be­yond the main at­trac­tion?

Sud­den­ly, the screen be­gins to tell a much big­ger sto­ry. Sud­den­ly, the ecosys­tem feels alive. Be­cause that is re­al­ly what suc­cess­ful sport­ing na­tions do well. They do not on­ly show­case stars. They show­case path­ways.

A young crick­eter or foot­baller sit­ting at home in Mor­vant, Ply­mouth, San­gre Grande or Pe­nal should be able to feel that they are con­nect­ed to some­thing larg­er than their own field or com­mu­ni­ty ground.

Cov­er­age helps cre­ate that feel­ing. We of­ten hear dis­cus­sions about in­fra­struc­ture, coach­ing and fa­cil­i­ties and all of those things are crit­i­cal. But vis­i­bil­i­ty is in­fra­struc­ture too. Peo­ple sup­port what they can see. Spon­sors in­vest in what they can see. Fans be­come at­tached to what they can see. Young play­ers dream about what they can see.

Some­times we un­der­es­ti­mate the emo­tion­al im­pact that cov­er­age can have. For an ath­lete, ap­pear­ing on tele­vi­sion for the first time can feel like val­i­da­tion. See­ing your name on a graph­ic or hear­ing your name men­tioned. Watch­ing high­lights of your­self on­line. Read­ing your quote in a news­pa­per. Those mo­ments tell play­ers that their ef­forts mat­ter.

And per­haps that is why cov­er­age to­day has be­come much big­ger than cam­eras. Cov­er­age cre­ates val­ue and it cre­ates iden­ti­ty and mem­o­ry. Long af­ter goals and bound­aries have been for­got­ten and fi­nal scores fade, peo­ple still re­mem­ber mo­ments be­cause some­body cap­tured them. Be­cause some­body told the sto­ry and showed peo­ple why it mat­tered.

Some­times the biggest sto­ries are not al­ways the ones in the cen­tre of the screen. Some­times they are qui­et­ly mov­ing across the bot­tom. And some­times that small line of text tells a young ath­lete: "Keep go­ing. Some­body is watch­ing."

Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. He was a FI­FA Me­dia Of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa and 2013 FI­FA U-20 World Cup in Turkey. He has trav­elled to over 90 coun­tries dur­ing his jour­ney in sport. “Pro Look” is his week­ly col­umn on foot­ball, sport, cul­ture and the hu­man side of the game. The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com