Sports telecasts are among the most popular and most-watched televised events in American history. The Super Bowl of the National Football League (NFL) accounts for 21 of the most-watched programs in American history. The last Super Bowl was watched by over 166 million people. As sports became more popular, network television began broadcasting more sporting events. Although, fundamentally nothing has changed since television aired the first nationally televised event.
The world's first televised sporting events began in 1936 when two German networks broadcast the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Sports broadcast television in the United States began in the 1940s with the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) broadcasting professional boxing matches from Madison Square Garden. However, television sets were still very small, so the broadcast ratings were only about a few hundred in New York. city. The 1949 Emmy Award was the first award given to television sports for "Best Sports Coverage." Also during this decade, Major League Baseball (MLB) aired its first televised games from Chicago. The game is significant in sports broadcasting because it established the broadcast format that most sports use today.
In the 1950s, as television technology developed, sports broadcasts began to be broadcast in color. The first color-televised event occurred on August 11, 1951, when Columbia Broadcasting Company (CBS) broadcast an MLB baseball game between the Brooklynn Dodgers and the Boston Braves. Another milestone in sports broadcasting occurred on June 5, 1952. It was the first nationally televised sporting event in American history. Weekly sporting events such as golf, professional wrestling, MLB, boxing, and rodeo circuit events also increased during this decade. In conjunction with the event, the network studio produced a weekly show talking about sports.
The 1960s was a decade in which sports broadcasting skyrocketed in popularity, with several important milestones. Major networks have begun to increase coverage of more sporting events. In 1960, CBS broadcast its first racing event in Daytona. Although it had little success due to the track's limited nature. It worked when they changed the name to the Daytona 500 until they made the event a 500-mile race. Also in 1960, the Summer Olympics were broadcast worldwide for the first time on CBS. In 1966, NBC broadcast the first televised sports championship with the National Hockey League (NHL) Stanley Cup Finals, and also introduced the NHL to television. In 1967, CBS and NBC aired the first NFL Super Bowl game between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. This is the first time that American society has started to see the event as more than a sporting event and become a cultural event. Another significant event occurred in 1968 in the infamous "Heidi Bowl". 'Heidi Ball' was an American football game, but the broadcast was stopped due to programming problems. With less than a minute left in the game, NBC switched live programming to The Heidi Show. This caused a great outcry because of the result and the game's exciting finish. This was when the network started delaying the next program to end the game. Instant replay has been introduced to sports for 10 years. Instant replay changed the game by allowing broadcasters to watch plays again. It also allows the audience to see what happened during the play.
1970 was a rather boring decade for 스포츠중계. In the 1970s, there were several things to note. The first notable event was the premiere broadcast of the NFL's Monday Night Football. Another incident that occurred in the 1970s was the broadcast of a boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Nicknamed the "Thrilla in Manila", the event was one of the most celebrated sporting events in history. It was also important that it was broadcast on Home Box Office Inc (HBO), making it the first sports televised event on cable TV. The final milestone of the 70s was perhaps one of the most prolific. It was the launch of America's Broadcasting Company (ABC)'s new network, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN). It was a commercial success, although many critics believed that an entirely sports-only program would not work in its regular format.
Sports viewership hit an all-time high in the 1980s. Another technology was working to change the way networks broadcast sports. That technology was stereo. The stereo was changing the way people listened to games. Stereo enhanced the broadcast experience by allowing viewers to hear coaches, referees, players, and other parts of the pitch.
The 1990s was a time when television networks started pouring millions of dollars into sports broadcasting. The network began airing more sports commentary and events on premium channels such as HBO and Showtime. At the time, the World Wrestling Federation, now World Wrestling Entertainment, was starting to find great success. In the NBA, NBC's Nielsen ratings were at an all-time high due to the Michael Jordan craze. The peak was rated at 18.7.
The new millennium was when people started seeing incredibly lucrative deals on sporting events. In 2010, CBS signed a 14-year, over $10 billion contract for the rights to broadcast the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's basketball tournament. Every sports team in every sport is starting to land record-breaking mega contracts with TV networks. Today sports broadcast television is one of the lucrative industries.