The "Did You Know?" Thread

[mb625]

Re: The "Did You Know?" Thread

Last semester I did a presentation on the history of football in the media and found out that the first league wide TV deal was for the 1951 NFL Championship game when the Dumont Network (the what now? ) paid $75K to carry the game... only problem, the Dumont Network did not have a great presence across the nation, and they later got the rights for the 1953-55 seasons televising games coast-to-coast on Saturday nights. Meanwhile, the CFL had a TV deal with NBC... who was NBC and, in an obvious twist, was a lot more popular across the country. In 1955, however NBC picked up the rights to the NFL Championship game (after Dumont folded in '55) and from there the NFL made up ground on the CFL and ended up passing it in popularity, thanks in large part to their relationship with NBC. Thought that was kind of interesting.

[SPTO]

Re: The "Did You Know?" Thread

Last semester I did a presentation on the history of football in the media and found out that the first league wide TV deal was for the 1951 NFL Championship game when the Dumont Network (the what now? ) paid $75K to carry the game... only problem, the Dumont Network did not have a great presence across the nation, and they later got the rights for the 1953-55 seasons televising games coast-to-coast on Saturday nights. Meanwhile, the CFL had a TV deal with NBC... who was NBC and, in an obvious twist, was a lot more popular across the country. In 1955, however NBC picked up the rights to the NFL Championship game (after Dumont folded in '55) and from there the NFL made up ground on the CFL and ended up passing it in popularity, thanks in large part to their relationship with NBC. Thought that was kind of interesting.

Interesting, on that note about the CFL, during the 1982 NFL strike NBC went up north and televised CFL games. Unfortunately, the games they televised were all blowouts. There doesn't seem to be much footage of those games around anymore these days. I think i've seen a grand total of 3 minutes of said footage.

[mb625]

Re: The "Did You Know?" Thread

Interesting, on that note about the CFL, during the 1982 NFL strike NBC went up north and televised CFL games. Unfortunately, the games they televised were all blowouts. There doesn't seem to be much footage of those games around anymore these days. I think i've seen a grand total of 3 minutes of said footage.

Did not know that one. That is interesting. While we're on the topic of early media and sports, the Mutual Broadcasting Systems got the rights to the World Series in the late 30s, but they weren't a nation-wide network at the time, so they went to CBS and NBC Red/Blue affiliates, offering them the chance to carry the series. CBS and NBC responded by banning their affiliates from carrying other network's programming. This led to the passing of the Chain Broadcasting Rules, which say that a network can't prevent an affiliate from airing another network's programming, and that stations have the right to refuse a network's programming.

I've got plenty of these. All these media history classes really add up.