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September 7, 1979, ESPN goes on the air.
- Thread starter Don CT
- Start date
In honor of that, Keith Olberman and Dan Patrick co-hosted SportsCenter last night after the baseball game. Scott Van Pelt was in the studio, but he deferred to Keith & Dan, who sat at their own anchor desk, and played lots of vintage clips from the history of the network. The writing last night was in the classic style of the show. Especially Keith, whose commentary was sharp as usual. I have a feeling we'll see more of them.
Disappointed that I missed that. Is it posted anywhere.
Yep, lots of clips all over the place. Here's one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=q_FiF9c0Ig8
From ESPN.com, here is a link to the premiere of Sportscenter, forty years ago, anchored by Lee Leonard:
https://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=24372987
https://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=24372987
Mgomrjsurf
Banned
It was Tennis not a Baseball Game because MLB Network had YouTube Game.
Also need to bring back Rich Eisen,Gary Miller,Jack Edwards,Winer,Flores,Kenny,Chris Myers ,Steiner,Robin Roberts and so on to do a Sportscenter.
Also need to bring back Rich Eisen,Gary Miller,Jack Edwards,Winer,Flores,Kenny,Chris Myers ,Steiner,Robin Roberts and so on to do a Sportscenter.
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Not rich eisen he is to egotistical for espn family of networks in my opinion FS1 can have him.
But I remember espn in the fall of ‘78. My apartment carried it as well as HBO. For no extra charge! I may have been watching a soft opening but it was there. Or perhaps espn was originally part of hbo. Don’t know I was 18 at the time.
Couldn't have been ESPN. The network was still in the planning stages -- and was known as ESP -- and didn't have a home or an uplink. It didn't even get the financing to launch until the following spring. It was never part of HBO.
Come to think of it, if you were watching it in 1978, maybe YOU had ESP!
I can vaguely remember seeing a cable network that may have been called SPN in the late 70's that was on the channel where HBO was when it was signed off at my grandmother's house. I know that may have been only on the local cable system. Was that it?
This is my 5000th post!!!
SPN was the Satellite Program Network, a very early attempt at cable programming that was a mishmash of public-domain movies, low-budget talk shows, ethnic programming and niche sports, like Scottish soccer (on tape delay), minor league baseball (ditto) and pro wrestling. It was an independent outfit, no ties to HBO or ESPN. It eventually became Tempo, then faded away as better-financed, more focused programming providers fueled the cable boom of the '80s.
FS1 doesn't have him as he has been with NFL Network since its launch.
Eisen also has a show on one of Sirius XM's many sports channels, Dan Patrick Radio. Apparently, his ego isn't so big that he wouldn't accept being the second banana.
That's more a deal with DirecTV. They own both Dan Patrick and Rich Eisen radio shows.
Mgomrjsurf
Banned
W
Aliance Network is only available on Direct TV because no Cable Company has a deal with it to add it to it's Cable Systems yet.
Aliance Network is only available on Direct TV because no Cable Company has a deal with it to add it to it's Cable Systems yet.
HBO was free there was actually someone who was able to hack into HBOs satellite feed back in i think early 90s or late eighties and put up a protest banner of hbo and showtime becoming paid channels.
Perhaps I am remembering SPN. But I do remember HBO and this new sports network on cable in September 1978 in Lewiston, Idaho. I don't think I am hallucinating here, really!
John MacDougall and it was 1986. Her didnt hack anything. He worked at a teleport facility (they uplinked services to satellites) that broadcast PPV movies out via a 30 foot dish that when he was finished he moved back to the same orbital slot as what HBO was. He just overrode the HBO signal by jamming it (same way Cuba does it in radio to prevent anti-cuba programming from Florida to reach Cuba). He owned a satellite shop that sold C-Band dishes so the scrambling would have affected his business
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Midnight_broadcast_signal_intrusion
Madison Square Garden sports used to share time with C-SPAN, coming on at night when all the business on Capitol Hill was done with, but I think that was after 1978 as well.
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