The History of Sports Broadcasting
What started out as just another way to watch sports has bloomed into something so much more. Today's sports broadcasts consist of features such as high definition, updates from across the sports world, and even 3D. It was not always like this, a radio use to be people's only way of listening to these broadcasts. Broadcasts began on the radio in the early 1920's with sports such as Baseball, Boxing, and Football. Almost twenty years later the first television broadcast aired, featuring a college baseball game between Columbia and Princeton. At the time of that broadcast there was only one camera used and it was positioned down the third base line. The business never truly took off until after World War Two. In the year that followed the war big events like the World Series and the Army vs. Navy football game were aired on television, providing a huge rise in television popularity. By the year 1950 there were 10.5 million television sets owned across the country. The next big milestone for the business would be the integration of color into the broadcasts. The first colored broadcast would take place at the 1955 Davis Cup in Forest Hills, New York on NBC. The introduction of satellite would come seven years later. Once the broadcasting companies began to pay professional sports leagues, such as the NBA and NFL several million dollars to broadcast their games the industry became a powerhouse and never looked back.