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The broadcasting of sports events (also known as a sportscast) is the live coverage of
sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
s as a
television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
, on
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
, and other
broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting beg ...
media. It usually involves one or more sports commentators describing events as they happen.


Origin

The broadcasting of sports events (also known as a sportscast) is the live coverage of
sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
s as a
television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
, on
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
, and other
broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting beg ...
media. It usually involves one or more sports commentators describing events as they happen. Sportscaster's environment is usually in booth, sets, and radio or television studios. Depending on the sportscasters specific job it is a time sensitive job, especially when depending on a play by play, they cannot miss any action, and due to their job they have to be flexible with schedule. Sports broadcasters have a variety of sections to deliver footage and their job can provide postgame coverage and interviews with athletes and coaches. Sports casting is a big industry throughout the United States and worldwide. Anything sports related, weather it's reading, watching, and hearing is a type of way sports broadcasting is in media. Sports broadcasters do more than just voice over plays and matches, they must be apart of researching their sports history and knowing game statistics. Studying sports and using facts is needed in their job and making the games exciting and entertaining.


History

Before technology, broadcasting never existed and in doing so led to consequences like not being able to rewatch a game or match. Sports broadcasting did develop through verbal retellings which then led to being spread on media like the radio, television, and more. Perhaps the first sports broadcast was by Guglielmo Marconi, who broadcast the
1899 America's Cup The 1899 America's Cup was the 10th challenge for the Cup. It took place in the New York City harbor and consisted of a best of five series of races between the defender, '' Columbia'', entered by the New York Yacht Club The New York Yacht C ...
from New York Harbor. The first ever prerecorded sportscast occurred in 1911 in Kansas. The first recording had a group of people recreate plays of a football game, that were trying to learn of a play via telegraph, but wasn't official because no one was present. Ten years later in 1921 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the first radio broadcasting event occurred of a boxing match. Then the first televised sporting event occurred 1939, which was the summer olympics in the United States. In 1951, the first sports color telecast was a baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Braves. As years went by more options were given to the public and the more popular sports broadcasting became. The first voice broadcasters happened, live broadcasting happened, and professional broadcasting happened. More media options became available to the public whether it be on newspapers, radio, or television. As the amount of people tuning in increased, so did the availabilities of where to hear and watch the broadcastings. Sports broadcasting also had an impact to the rise of American citizens being interested in being entertained. As more demand occurred from more sports broadcasters, the programing networks got more advanced with the technology as well.


By country


Canada

Broadcasting of sports started with descriptions of play sent via
telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...
in the 1890s. In 1896, a telegraph line was connected to the
Victoria Rink The Victoria Skating Rink was an indoor ice skating rink located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Opened in 1862, it was described at the start of the twentieth century to be "one of the finest covered rinks in the world". The building was used dur ...
in
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
to update fans in
Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...
of the Stanley Cup challenge series between Montreal and Winnipeg
ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
teams. In 1923, the first radio broadcast of an ice hockey game took place on 8 February, with the broadcast of the third period of a game between Midland and North Toronto of the Ontario Hockey Association. Later that month, the first full-game broadcast took place in Winnipeg. That same season, hockey broadcasting pioneer
Foster Hewitt Foster William Hewitt, (November 21, 1902 – April 21, 1985) was a Canadian radio broadcaster most famous for his play-by-play calls for ''Hockey Night in Canada''. He was the son of W. A. Hewitt, and the father of Bill Hewitt. Biography ...
made his first broadcast. In 1933, Hewitt called an
olympic games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
-wide radio broadcast of an NHL game between the Detroit Red Wings and the
Toronto Maple Leafs The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Div ...
. Always starting the broadcast with "Hello, Canada, and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland!"; this phrase stuck around (albeit without the "Newfoundland" portion after the dominion confederated into Canada in 1949) all the way to CBC's first national television broadcast (the first actual broadcast was on closed-circuit in
Maple Leaf Gardens Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was initially constructed in 1931 as an arena to host ice hockey games, though it has sinc ...
in Spring 1952) of ''
Hockey Night in Canada CBC Television has aired National Hockey League (NHL) broadcasts under the ''Hockey Night in Canada'' (often abbreviated ''Hockey Night'' or ''HNiC'') brand that is primarily associated with its Saturday night NHL broadcasts throughout its hi ...
'' in October 1952. Today it is consistently among the highest-rated programs in Canada. Broadcasting of the
Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
has been a fixture of Canadian television since the CBC's debut in 1952. From 1962 (one year after the debut of CTV) through 2007, there were two separate CFL contracts: one for CBC, and one for CTV (or a sister channel such as cable outlet TSN). Terrestrial television broadcasts of CFL games ended in 2008, when TSN acquired exclusive TV rights to the league. American sports broadcasts are widely available in Canada, both from Canadian stations and from
border blaster A border blaster is a broadcast station that, though not licensed as an external service, is, in practice, used to target another country. The term "border blaster" is of North American origin, and usually associated with Mexican AM station ...
s in the United States. In order to protect Canadian broadcasters' advertising, broadcast stations can invoke
simultaneous substitution Simultaneous substitution (also known as simsubbing or signal substitution) is a practice mandated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) requiring broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) in Canada to dis ...
: any cable or satellite feed of an American station broadcasting the same program as a Canadian broadcast station must be blacked out and replaced by the Canadian feed. This rule is part of the reason the NFL, which is broadcast on terrestrial television in the United States but has no direct presence in Canada, is also broadcast on terrestrial TV in Canada, while the CFL no longer is (the CFL is broadcast only on cable in the United States); the simultaneous substitution benefits are not extended to cable stations. For the purposes of regional sports broadcasting, the
Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...
and
Toronto Raptors The Toronto Raptors are a Canadian professional basketball team based in Toronto. The Raptors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. They play their home games a ...
both claim all of Canada as their "territory," allowing Blue Jays and Raptors games to be broadcast nationwide.


Ireland

The first live commentary on a field sport anywhere in Europe was when Paddy Mehigan covered the All-Ireland Hurling Semi-Final between Kilkenny and Galway on 29 August 1926. This game is credited with being the first mainly because the BBC was prevented from broadcasting sporting events before 7.00pm as a means of protecting British newspaper sales. Originally there was no sports department for Irish radio. Gaelic Games and live commentary were very popular with Irish radio. Some prominent figures are Seán Óg Ó Ceallacháin who broadcast for the Gaelic Games and live commentary weekly beginning in 1930. Many sports were covered in Irish broadcasting including Bridge tournaments.


United Kingdom


Radio

The first sports event broadcast on radio in Europe was a
Boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...
contest for the Flyweight Championship of Great Britain and Europe between Elky Clark of
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
and Kid Socks of England. relayed from the
National Sporting Club The National Sporting Club was a club founded in London in 1891, which did more to establish the sport of boxing in Great Britain than any other organisation. Origins The club was founded on 5 March 1891 as a private club. Its premises were at ...
in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
on 26 February 1926. Further boxing commentaries were broadcast by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
on 29 March 1926, a British featherweight title defence by Johnny Curley, and 6 October 1927, when
Teddy Baldock Teddy "The Pride Of Poplar" Baldock (24 May 1907 — 8 March 1971) born in Poplar, London was an English professional bantam/ feather/lightweight boxer of the 1920s and 1930s who won the National Sporting Club (NSC) (subsequently known as th ...
lost his claim to the British version of the World bantamweight title to South African Willie Smith. The first outdoor sports event broadcast in the United Kingdom was a
Rugby Union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...
international between
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
, broadcast from
Twickenham Twickenham is a suburban district in London, England. It is situated on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965, and the boroug ...
in January 1927. Two weeks later the first broadcast of a football match took place, with the BBC covering Arsenal's league fixture against
Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...
at
Highbury Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads. The manor house was sit ...
. Listeners to the broadcast could use numbered grids published in the Radio Times in order to ascertain in which area of the pitch (denoted as "squares") the action was taking place due to a second commentator reading out grid references during the match. The BBC broadcasts almost all major sports events. Initially broadcast as a MW opt-out on BBC Radio 2, The launch of Radio 5 in 1990 saw a huge increase in the level of coverage on BBC Radio. Radio 5 became BBC Radio 5 Live in 1994 and the station, which combines live news and sport, provides round-the-clock coverage of sport through both live commentary and sports news and discussion. Live cricket commentary is broadcast on 5 Live's digital sports channel BBC 5 Sports Extra. This includes cricket coverage which is also aired on the long wave frequencies of BBC Radio 4. BBC Local Radio provides extensive coverage of sport, giving more exposure to second-tier football clubs which would otherwise receive limited national coverage. The BBC's main commercial rival is Talksport, but this has not acquired anywhere near as many exclusive contracts as Sky Sports and instead dedicates much of its airtime to sports discussions and phone-ins.


TV

The first sporting event to be televised in the UK was an international boxing tournament between England and Ireland from Alexandra Palace on 4 February 1937. The United Kingdom saw the first live television broadcast of a football match, with the BBC showing a specially arranged fixture between Arsenal and Arsenal Reserves on 16 September 1937. The British media is dominated by national outlets, with local media playing a much smaller role. Traditionally the BBC played a dominant role in televising sport, providing extensive high-quality advertisement free coverage and free publicity in exchange for being granted broadcast rights for low fees. ITV broadcast a smaller portfolio of events, and
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
broadcast a few events from the 1980s, mainly horse races and so-called "minority sports". In the early 1990s this arrangement was shaken up by the arrival of
pay-TV Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, but ...
in the form of BSkyB and its sports channel
Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...
. Their dedicated sports channels have since become the only place for some major sports to be seen. Starting in 2006, the Irish company
Setanta Sports Setanta Sports is a sports television company based in Dublin, Ireland broadcasting throughout select Eurasian. The company was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events to international audiences. The company previo ...
emerged as a challenger to Sky Sports' dominance of the British pay-TV sports market; however, Setanta's UK channel went into bankruptcy administration and off the air in 2009. Between 2009 and 2013
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
made an attempt to challenge Sky Sports before its British operations were bought out by Sky's current main competitor,
BT Sport BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Bro ...
; a subsidiary of the former national telecommunications monopoly
BT plc BT Group plc (trade name, trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is th ...
. There is also a dedicated UK version of
Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its international sports unit, it operates two main channels— Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territories, ...
, called British Eurosport, and
Viaplay Sports Viaplay Sports and Premier Sports are a group of pay television sports channels owned by Viaplay Group. Viaplay Sports holds exclusive live UK and Republic of Ireland TV rights to La Liga, Scottish League Cup, Elite Ice Hockey League, NHL an ...
, which replaced Premier Sports in 2022, also broadcasts live and recorded sports coverage.


United States

National and local media both serve major roles in broadcasting
sports in the United States Sports are an important part of culture in the United States. Historically, the national sport has been baseball. However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership audience. B ...
. Depending on the league and event, telecasts are often shown live on
network television Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...
(traditionally on weekends and during major events either national through a
Television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid- ...
, or in some cases, regionally syndicated by an operation such as Raycom Sports or a team), and nationally available cable channels (such as
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
or
Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 1 (FS1) is an American pay television channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 replaced the motorsports network Speed on August 17, 2013, at the same time that its companion channel Fox Sports ...
). In some leagues (such as the
NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
and the NBA), events are also primarily shown by
regional sports network In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...
s groups (such as Fox Sports Networks), networks which air telecasts for teams of local interest, which are usually only carried within the relevant market. Additionally, cable channels also exist that are dedicated to specific types of sports, certain
college sports College athletics encompasses non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games. World University Games The first World University Games were held in 1923. There were originally called the ''Union Nationale des ...
conferences, or a specific league. Pay-per-view broadcasts are typically restricted to combat sports such as boxing, mixed martial arts or professional wrestling. Radio broadcasts are extensive. The national leagues each have national network coverage of league high games in addition to local radio coverage originating with each team, with ESPN Radio and WestwoodOne controlling national rights to the major team sports and the motorsports circuits operating their own networks. Local radio broadcasts cover a wide variety of sports, ranging from the majors to local school and recreational leagues. Internet broadcasts are also common, though college and major professional sports either use a
pay wall A paywall is a method of restricting access to content, with a purchase or a paid subscription, especially news. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their websites as a way to increase revenue after years of ...
or subscriber-based systems such as
TV Everywhere TV Everywhere (also known as authenticated streaming or authenticated video on-demand) refers to a type of subscription business model wherein access to streaming video content from a television channel requires users to "authenticate" themse ...
to extract payment. Telephone broadcasts are rare, although a few companies provide the service.


History

In 1911, more than 1,000 people gathered in downtown Lawrence, Kansas to watch a mechanical reproduction of the 1911 Kansas vs. Missouri football game while it was being played. A
Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...
telegraph wire was set up direct from Columbia, Missouri. A group of people then would announce the results of the previous play and used a large model of a football playing field to show the results. Those in attendance cheered as though they were watching the game live, including the school's legendary ''
Rock Chalk, Jayhawk "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk" (a.k.a. the Rock Chalk chant) is a chant used at University of Kansas Jayhawks sporting events. The chant is made up of the phrase "Rock chalk, Jayhawk, KU". History The chant was first adopted by the university's science clu ...
'' cheer. This was followed on Thanksgiving 1919 by the first true broadcast (as opposed to the 1911 point-to-point transmission) of a college football game, over 5XB, the experimental station that eventually became WTAW; that year's Lone Star Shooutout was, as with the Kansas/Missouri game, distributed in telegraph code but was open to anyone listening to the station. The first voice broadcast of a sporting event took place on 11 April 1921 when Westinghouse station KDKA in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
broadcast a 10-round, no decision boxing match between
Johnny Dundee Johnny Dundee (November 19, 1893 – April 22, 1965) was an American featherweight and the first world junior lightweight champion boxer who fought from 1910 until 1932. He was inducted into the Ring Magazine Hall of Fame in 1957 and the Int ...
and Johnny Ray at Pittsburgh's Motor Square Garden. The event was reported by Florent Gibson, the first sports broadcaster. The first radio broadcast of a baseball game occurred on 5 August 1921 over KDKA from Pittsburgh's
Forbes Field Forbes Field was a baseball park in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1909 to June 28, 1970. It was the third home of the Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball (MLB) team, and the first home of the Pittsburgh Steelers ...
. Harold W. Arlin announced a game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Phillies. Two months later, on 8 October 1921, from the same Forbes Field, Arlin announced the first live radio broadcast of a college football game on KDKA when he gave the play-by-play action of the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
victory over
West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State Coll ...
. On 17 May 1939, the United States' first televised sporting event, a college baseball game between the
Columbia Lions The Columbia University Lions are the collective athletic teams and their members from Columbia University, an Ivy League institution in New York City, United States. The current director of athletics is Peter Pilling. Ivy League athletics Th ...
and
Princeton Tigers The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 35 varsity teams in 20 sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, three in women's lacrosse, six in ...
, was broadcast by
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
from Columbia's Baker Field. (The world's first live televised sporting event had been the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.) On 30 September 1939, the first
American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
game, a college contest between Fordham and Waynesburg College was broadcast on television. The first nationwide broadcast of college football, which was also the first live sporting event seen coast-to-coast, was a game between Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh that was televised by NBC on 29 September 1951. The broadcasting of college football games on television in the United States has been a fixture of the major networks on a continuous basis since that time. The NCAA severely restricted broadcasts of college football from the 1950s until a judge ruled that the action was a violation of antitrust rules in
1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...
, which allowed for a much greater expansion of college football broadcasting. NBC broadcast the first televised
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL) game when they carried the 22 October 1939 game between the
Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...
and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The same year, the first nationwide radio broadcast of an NFL championship game was carried on the
Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden ...
. While the NFL had weak television deals that ranked behind college football and even the
Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
in the 1950s, the broadcast rights of the NFL would go on to become an important property following the 1958 NFL Championship and the later establishment of the American Football League in 1960. ''
Monday Night Football ''ESPN Monday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''MNF'' and also known as ''ESPN Monday Night Football on ABC'' for simulcasts) is an American live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games currently airing on ESPN, A ...
'', '' NFL on Fox'', and ''
NBC Sunday Night Football ''NBC Sunday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''SNF'') is an American weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC and Peacock in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006, with the Pro Football Hall of Fa ...
'' have changed the landscape of American football broadcasts, including the scheduling of the Super Bowl, transforming it from an afternoon broadcast into a primetime spectacle. The price for the NFL's broadcast rights has increased steadily over the past several decades, in part because of bidding wars between the numerous networks and the fear of losing stature due to the loss of NFL programming; as of the most recent contract the league nets annual fees of over $6 billion, or half of the league's overall revenue, from television rights alone. Four of the five major sports television units in the United States, and the four companies that control all of the major broadcast networks, currently own some NFL rights. NBC also broadcast an NHL game in 1940; the league would briefly air games in the 1950s, but due to a dispute over how much of the rights fee money the players would receive (and difficulties programming around the two Canadian teams in the league at the time), the NHL refused to televise its games in the United States for six years in the 1960s. For this reason, as well as the regional nature of the sport, televised NHL games have struggled to gain a foothold on American television for the past several decades, trailing the other leagues in ratings. After several decades of bouncing around various networks (and a stretch from 1975 to 1994 when the league had no permanent broadcast partner), the NHL established a stable broadcast partner in 2004, when
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
and what was then Outdoor Life Network (now NBCSN) took over NHL broadcast rights; they have since renewed those rights through 2021. The first-ever television broadcast of a basketball game occurred on 28 February 1940 when the University of Pittsburgh defeated Fordham at Madison Square Garden on
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
station W2XBS. Professional basketball has been aired on television since 1953, shortly after the founding of the
National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
, and has been aired on television ever since. College basketball, on the other hand, was much later in gaining a television foothold. Although the NCAA Tournament has aired since 1962, it was not until the mid-1970s that regular-season college basketball games would air on major network television. Outside of the networks, the only other source for national sports television was through early
syndication Syndication may refer to: * Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system * Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips * Web syndication, ...
networks. Sports Network Incorporated (SNI), later renamed the
Hughes Television Network HTN Communications, better known as Hughes Television Network (HTN) and formerly Sports Network, was an American television network created by Richard Eugene Bailey. The company is now in the business of providing video and audio services to spo ...
, carried
Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (A ...
(NFL) games in the 1950s and NHL games in the late 1970s, after the NHL lost its contract with NBC.
TVS Television Network The TVS Television Network, or TVS for short, was a syndicator of American sports programming. It was one of the several "occasional" national television networks that sprang up in the early-to-mid-1960s to take advantage of the establishment ...
helped popularize the broadcasts of college basketball and also gave an outlet to the short-lived World Football League.
Mizlou Television Network Mizlou Television Network, Inc. or Mizlou Communications, Inc., is a former sports broadcast television network. It was active from 1962 to 1991, and in 1992 it was re-established as Mizlou Television Network, Inc., which is now based in Tampa, ...
earned a reputation for carrying a large number of college football
bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...
s in an era when televised college football was highly restricted. Modern syndication networks still exist for sporting events, such as Raycom Sports and
American Sports Network American Sports Network (ASN) was a sports brand owned by the U.S. television station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group through its Sinclair Networks subsidiary. Formed in July 2014, the multicast network component of ASN produced broadcasts of sp ...
, both of which specialize in college sports. The debut of
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
in 1979 revolutionized the broadcasting of sports events. Within several years of ESPN's founding as a basic cable channel, it had developed a stable of sports broadcasts ranging from major leagues to oddities. ESPN has since grown into a massive multiplexed network, with several channels and a large news bureau that has led to the network bestowing the title of "Worldwide Leader in Sports" upon itself. Cable, and later digital cable and satellite, greatly expanded the number of channels (and, by extension, the room for broadcasting sports events) available on a given set, and also gave channels such as ESPN the ability to broadcast direct and nationwide, as opposed to dealing with local affiliates. Syndication networks gave way to
regional sports network In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...
s, which carried broadcasts of local sports on a far greater scale than full-service broadcast stations could provide at the time; these combined with
out-of-market sports package In North America, an out-of-market sports package is a form of subscription television that broadcasts sporting events to areas where the events were unable to be seen by viewers on other broadcast and cable television networks due to the games no ...
s (which debuted in the 1990s) allowed the carriage of these networks' sporting events across the country. However, with the increased availability of sports to broadcast came increasing rights fees, which could be recovered by the newly authorized practice of collecting
retransmission consent Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commer ...
fees from cable subscribers, which has led to numerous disputes and the dropping of channels from cable lineups. Individual leagues began launching their own networks in the 2000s; specialty networks of other sports have had varying levels of success. One of the first live high-definition sports broadcasts in the U.S. took place in September 1998 in which a football game between
Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...
and
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...
, aired on
WBNS-TV WBNS-TV (channel 10) is a television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside the company's sole radio properties, WBNS (1460 AM) and WBNS-FM (97.1). The stations share studios on Twi ...
. The station claims this to have been the first locally produced HD broadcast in the U.S.; however, as several other stations throughout the country also lay claim to this distinction, the veracity cannot be verified. It is widely considered the first ever live sports game in HD in the U.S. produced using a production truck and transmission vehicle from
NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...
, Japan's national public broadcasting organization. The Internet has also allowed greater broadcasting of sports events, both in video and audio forms and through free and subscription channels. With an Internet broadcast, even a locally broadcast high school football game can be heard worldwide on any device with an audio output and an Internet connection. Individual leagues (including major ones) all have subscription services that allow subscribers to watch their sporting events for a fee. One of the first live sporting events in the U.S. to be streamed was the Ohio State spring football game in 2001 by
WBNS-TV WBNS-TV (channel 10) is a television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside the company's sole radio properties, WBNS (1460 AM) and WBNS-FM (97.1). The stations share studios on Twi ...
. The game was delivered on RealVideo, a compressed video format, on the
RealPlayer RealPlayer, formerly RealAudio Player, RealOne Player and RealPlayer G2, is a cross-platform media player app, developed by RealNetworks. The media player is compatible with numerous container file formats of the multimedia realm, including MP3 ...
media player platform on the station's website. It also was distributed to
Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...
mobile devices using the
Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player (application software), media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing sound reproduction, audio, video and viewing images on personal computers runnin ...
format, including
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
's
IPAQ The iPAQ is a discontinued Pocket PC and personal digital assistant which was first unveiled by Compaq in April 2000. HP's line-up of iPAQ devices included PDA-devices, smartphones and GPS-navigators. A substantial number of devices were ...
personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in part ...
which required an ExpressCard to connect to the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
.


Broadcasting rights and contracts

Broadcasting rights and contracts limit who can show footage of the event. In the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, Sky UK based its early marketing largely on its acquisition of the broadcast rights of the top division of the English league football, which as part of the deal with
The Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
broke away from
The Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in Association football around the wor ...
to become the
Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
. This prevented the footage of any major Premier League football game being shown on free-to-air television until much later that evening as highlights, something the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
disapproved of. Following warnings of legal action to stop the monopoly, an announcement was made that an alternative structure would be in place when the contract ended in 2007. In the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, team sports are broadcast by
networks Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...
usually only in "game of the week" or championship situations, except for the NFL (see
NFL on television The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any American sport. Television brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then ...
) and motorsport. Other sports are broadcast by sports channels, and are limited by who can view them based on various rules set by the leagues themselves, resulting in blackouts. These limitations can be legally overlooked by purchasing
out-of-market sports package In North America, an out-of-market sports package is a form of subscription television that broadcasts sporting events to areas where the events were unable to be seen by viewers on other broadcast and cable television networks due to the games no ...
s, such as MLB Extra Innings or
NFL Sunday Ticket NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts National Football League (NFL) regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. It carries all regional Sunday afternoon games produced by Fox and CBS. The ideal custome ...
. Regular season games involving local teams (except the NFL) may also be viewed on those local stations or regional sports channels that have a contract to broadcast that team's games. Events that have been described as "the most watched" per various definitions include the
FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...
, Summer Olympic Games, Cricket World Cup,
UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...
,
Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
,
Rugby World Cup The Rugby World Cup is a men's rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams. The tournament is administered by World Rugby, the sport's international governing body. The winners are awarded the Webb E ...
(rugby union),
Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...
, Super Bowl, and the FIA
Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
World Championship. TV Rights of the UEFA Champions League, per country. Season 2009-2010, according to FootBiz. *United Kingdom: €179 million *Italy: €98 million *Spain: €91 million *Germany: €85 million *France: €52 million *Croatia: €28 million *Poland: €8.1 million *North America: €3.5 million *Belgium: €2.9 million *India: €2.9 million *Australia: €2.9 million *Ireland: €2 million


Anti-siphoning laws

In some countries, broadcast regulations referred to as " anti-siphoning laws" exist in order to ensure that coverage of major sporting events of national importance—often covering major events such as the Olympics,
FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...
, and national team events in culturally-significant sports—are available on free-to-air, terrestrial television, rather than exclusively on pay television. Some larger events (particularly the Olympics) may be covered under rules allowing a portion of the event to be televised by a pay TV partner if a specific minimum of coverage is broadcast free-to-air, or if an extended highlights package is available on a delay to a free-to-air broadcaster. In the United States, the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
attempted to introduce similar restrictions on cable broadcasts of specific sporting events and recent films as to not cannibalize broadcast TV. In 1977, these restrictions were deemed to be invalid when a federal district court ruled that the FCC did not have the authority to make such decisions in a consolidated case, also noting that the constitutional basis for such a law had not been proven. No such laws have been passed since. Since then, sports have been a lucrative source of revenue in the U.S. pay television industry, including mainstream networks such as
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
, as well as channels devoted to specific sports, leagues, and college sports conferences. These networks receive revenue from both advertising and carriage fees charged to television providers (and passed onto consumers as part of the cost of service), and can provide an outlet for expanded coverage of "niche" events with dedicated audiences. By the mid-2000s and early 2010s, most major U.S. sports leagues (barring the
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
, which has historically stipulated that all games be shown on terrestrial television in at least the markets of the teams involved) had begun to steadily decrease their presence on broadcast television, and allow more of their content (including post-season coverage in many cases) to air on cable networks, and more recently, digital-only outlets. The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament and national championship games in college football have also largely moved to cable (since 2016, the semi-finals of the former only air on broadcast television in odd-numbered years). A similar phenomenon has taken root in much of Canadian sport, where the
Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
left broadcast television in 2008. The
National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
survives on Canadian broadcast television because
Rogers Sportsnet Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then was r ...
, the cable broadcaster that acquired exclusive rights to the league in 2014, offers two weekly games to CBC Television for free to allow the network to continue the long-running ''
Hockey Night in Canada CBC Television has aired National Hockey League (NHL) broadcasts under the ''Hockey Night in Canada'' (often abbreviated ''Hockey Night'' or ''HNiC'') brand that is primarily associated with its Saturday night NHL broadcasts throughout its hi ...
''.


Dedicated sports channels


Team-owned channels

Several sports teams in the United States have their own channels, or own shares in other sports networks. For example, the
Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...
and
Boston Bruins The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team has been in existence since 1924, making t ...
own New England Sports Network, which retains the New England area television broadcast rights for the majority of Red Sox games (except nationally televised games). The
New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...
own
SportsNet New York SportsNet New York (SNY) is an American regional sports network owned by Sterling Entertainment Enterprises, LLC, itself a joint venture between the Fred Wilpon (which owns a controlling 65% interest) Sterling Equities, Charter Communications th ...
jointly with Comcast and
Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...
. Madison Square Garden has its own network as well,
MSG Monosodium glutamate (MSG), also known as sodium glutamate, is the sodium Salt (chemistry), salt of glutamic acid. MSG is found naturally in some foods including tomatoes and cheese in this glutamic acid form. MSG is used in cooking as a fl ...
, where they broadcast
New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home ...
, New York Knicks, New York Islanders and high school sports games, as well as original shows.
Altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...
airs games of all Denver-based teams owned by Kroenke Sports Enterprises.
Mid-Atlantic Sports Network The Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) is an American regional sports network owned as a joint venture between two Major League Baseball franchises, the Baltimore Orioles (which owns a controlling 77% interest) and the Washington Nationals (whic ...
is a partnership between the
Washington Nationals The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C.. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. From 2005 to 2007, the team played in RFK Stadiu ...
and
Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...
. The
Longhorn Network Longhorn Network (LHN) is an American regional sports network owned as a joint venture between The University of Texas at Austin, ESPN and Learfield (formerly IMG College), and is operated by ESPN (itself owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company a ...
, in which ESPN owns a stake, is even more specialized, designed as an outlet for the athletic program of the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
(although it has also aired
football games Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
of the UT system's San Antonio campus). Team-owned channels are also common in Europe, most notably
Barça TV Barça TV () is a Spanish television channel operated by FC Barcelona. The channel is available in Catalan, Spanish and English. It is located at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona. FC Barcelona media R@dio Barça R@dio Barça () is a Spanish ra ...
, Benfica TV,
Galatasaray TV Galatasaray TV (GSTV) is a channel of Turkish company Galatasaray S.K. The daily programs of this TV include live games (basketball, volleyball, water polo, equestrian, youth football teams, rowing and sailing) and learning cultural roots of Galata ...
, Manchester United TV,
Liverpool TV Local TV Liverpool (typeset as LOCAL TV Liverpool) is a local television station serving Liverpool City Region and surrounding areas. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Limited and forms part of a group of nine LOCAL TV sta ...
and
Real Madrid TV Real Madrid TV is a free digital television channel, operated by Real Madrid specialising in the Spanish football club. The channel is available in Spanish and English. It is located at Ciudad Real Madrid in Valdebebas (Madrid), Real Madrid's tra ...
.


See also

*
Sports journalism Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of t ...


References


Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Broadcasting Of Sports Events * Sports events Sports events Sports journalism * * Sports events History of television