Boxing and Wrestling

Virginia Postrel on how live sports saved television. 

Sports were so perfect for television that many feared the new medium would devastate ticket sales. ‘It’s inevitable that sports attendance will crash to a national calamity’, declared a columnist, reporting that boxing authorities in the nation’s capital were lobbying for legislation requiring broadcasters to cover match expenses. Football coach Rip Engle, then at Brown University and soon to move to Penn State, foresaw a shakeout. ‘I won’t be surprised if there are only ten college football teams left in a few years’, he said in 1949. ‘That’s what’s going to happen if games involving the big schools are widely televised’. Others predicted the death of minor league baseball. Why turn out for the local farm team when the big leagues were on TV?

But the tiny screens worked best for visually contained sports such as boxing, bowling, wrestling, and even roller derby or horse racing.  As for the big-field sports, it is important to remember that people were already listening to baseball and college football on the radio. Even a ghosty picture was a big addition.  Basketball was just a little too large for those screens, and soccer wasn't even under consideration.  Only as the camera work greatly improved did those become popular on TV.