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Most obscure sporting broadcast?

How about dog racing? WSBK Boston used to run a nightly half-hour of race replays from Raynham Greyhound Park for a couple of years in the late '80s or early '90s. A decade later, Massachusetts voters put Raynham out of business by supporting a binding referendum declaring dog racing illegal in the state. There are still several active greyhound tracks in Florida, though. I wonder if any stations there still run replay shows.
 
The old WTWS-TV channel 26 (now ION affiliate WHPX-TV) of New London, CT used to run Racing From Plainfield on late night weeknights. It was also a dog racing track of sorts. I never hear or see ads for it these days, so it must be gone, too. :confused:
 
Once met a fella who turned down an assignment to broadcast . . . . log rolling.

I think the obscure sport that actually became big time about 15-20 years ago was poker. I've never watched it- I have been told I'm missing a trend- but I would much rather play cards than watch people playing cards.
 
KML-224 said:
The old WTWS-TV channel 26 (now ION affiliate WHPX-TV) of New London, CT used to run Racing From Plainfield on late night weeknights. It was also a dog racing track of sorts. I never hear or see ads for it these days, so it must be gone, too. :confused:
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Gone for at least 10 years. It wasn't a "dog racing track of sorts," it was a dog racing track, period. It died a slow death after Foxwoods, and then Mohegan Sun, sprung up in its backyard. With nothing but dog racing to offer -- no slots, no poker, no entertainment -- it wound up attracting only the hardcore dog bettors. And even they could bet Plainfield's races at the casino or through Connecticut OTB.
 
ESPN2 was basically "The Ocho" back in the day...besides the already mentioned Magic tourneys (which got me inspired to play Magic), there was Pro Beach Hockey (roller hockey), the World Juggling Federation (how they scored jugglers' performances was not explained fully), tape delayed Running of the Bulls coverage, a summer travelling Madden game tournament, And 1 Street Basketball, tape delayed Rucker Park basketball, and my favorite, the Tom Emanski Defensive Drills commercial featuring superstar Fred McGriff and Baseball World's back-to-back-to-back AAU National Championship Teams practically aired ten times a day!!!
 
ESPN also broadcasts the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest every Fourth of July from Coney Island in New York.

This year's competition was live on ESPN3 due to Wimbledon coverage on both ESPN and ESPN2; it would air on the former after tennis.

Speaking of video game tournaments...TBS now has something called ELeague on Friday nights.
 
seatownmedia said:
That "Seattle" station was likely Tacoma licensed indie KTNT, now CW KSTW. In 1970 they were still known as "The Tacoma Station", so those two teams would have been logical. Swimming, however, really is not logical so you have me there!
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After spending about 10 minutes on the internet, and about 2 seconds of my memory, there was a very famous swimmer from the UW training for the '72 Olympics, Lynn Colella, who won a silver in those Munich Olympics. Perhaps one of those Tacoma schools had someone who had the same goals, but who that is I could not find. Just some trivia with this...
 
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seatownmedia said:
After spending about 10 minutes on the internet, and about 2 seconds of my memory, there was a very famous swimmer from the UW training for the '72 Olympics, Lynn Colella, who won a silver in those Munich Olympics. Perhaps one of those Tacoma schools had someone who had the same goals, but who that is I could not find. Just some trivia with this...
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FWIW, KTNT did broadcast the Pacific Lutheran-Puget Sound swimming match on January 24, 1970 on KTNT, going up against the NBC movie, "The Last Safari," Green Acres/Petticoat Junction/Mannix on CBS and the last half of Lawrence Welk and Hollywood Palace on ABC.
 
In the 1970s, WSBK-TV in Boston would air 3 hours of Canadian Football League games. I remember that during one telecast, I saw a choir doing a song for Panasonic products!
 
blackgold said:
In the 1970s, WSBK-TV in Boston would air 3 hours of Canadian Football League games. I remember that during one telecast, I saw a choir doing a song for Panasonic products!
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Those were syndicated games. If I'm not mistaken, Alex Karras was one of the color men.
 
As someone said up thread, darts, snooker and cricket are all big in the UK. So is rugby. Is that ever aired on US TV?

Baseball would be considered pretty obscure here, unlike gridiron football, which has a large-ish cult following.

The most obscure sport ever shown on British TV? That's a tricky one. Lots of fairly obscure sports on at the moment, due to the Olympics. But Channel Four used to televise Kabaddi, which must take some beating? (this was in the four channel era as well)
 
Rugby Sevens got some US TV coverage over the last few years leading up to the Olympics, particularly the Las Vegas tournament, along with others in the 'World Series'. The NCAA championship of Sevens also gets airtime each year. NBC sports also recently began covering the Aviva Premeirship rugby union matches each weekend.
 
I can't remember if it's the CW affiliate KMYS-35 or it's sister station KCWX-2 My Network TV affiliate in San Antonio, Texas that airs this, but they air or used to air a show called Texas Roller Girls on Friday nights. It was basically a female roller derby competion, I remember catching it for the first time some years ago and going what the heck is this? The same stations also aired Texas Speedway races, and local horse races. Those are pretty obscure sports to catch on television.

I'd also say that small wrestling companies like Ring of Honor are pretty obscure to catch on TV. Here in San Antonio, they are syndicated on Sinclair networks KMYS-35 and FOX KABB-29, and sometimes it's on digital sub channels. Most people I talk too, don't even know that these shows are on TV, speaking of wrestling AXS-TV on cable/satellite airs New Japan Pro Wrestling, I'd say that's pretty obscure also.
 
One sport that aired once ABC's Wide World of Spots back in the mid 60s was one I watched closely and enjoyed so much I tuned in every weekend for more, but never saw any more coverage. I think it is still contested. I've found references to it on the internet but sadly, no YouTube videos. It was a competition for fire departments racing against the clock in several different obstacle courses. They used vehicles that were pickup truck size hot rod fire trucks. A crew would ride the truck down a straight track as fast as possible to a burning obstacle and had to deploy different tools for each race, racing against the clock for the best time. The one I remember vividly was the ladder climb. Once the truck stopped a ladder was set up and a fire-fighter had to climb the ladder and hit a button at the top of a structure to stop the clock. The ladder had to be raised from horizontal from behind the truck. One team was so quick that before the truck had stopped and the ladder was even vertical the climber was already half-way up the ladder!
 
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