Re: Early Network Coverage Of The NFL
joe,
if i may, i'll try to address as best as i know:
> I thought I read somewhere that KNBH-4 Los Angeles (now
> KNBC) had the L.A. Rams circa 1950.
i think that is correct, i'll have to double check that.
>
> Until September of 1951, California was not hooked-up to the
> "national" AT&T coaxial cable/microeave television network
> facilities. Prior to that, there was a microwave system
> connecting San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
>
> Thus, the Rams and the San Francisco 49ers had to televise
> home games because they really had no choice. Had each team
> decided to broadcast only away games in 1950, just one game
> of each team could have been televised live (the Rams' game
> in San Francisco on October 1st and the Niners' game in L.A.
> on November 5th, according to Shrp sports.com), given that
> California was not yet connected to the national network
> lines.
that is true. i think both the rams and niners in 1951 experimented with road telecasts. for sure the rams blacked out home telecasts in 51 after the attendance drop. by 1953 most nfl teams had adopted blackout policies. i think the nfl blacked out its championship games starting in 51, and all playoff games were blacked out locally, regardless of sell-out situation thru 1972.
>
> I had thought that DuMont continued to carry the Giants,
> Washington, and Pittsburgh through 1955.
for sure, the redskins had wtop, the cbs affiliate, do their away games in 1955. for sure, the steelers were on dumont in 55 and i think the giants as well and the eagles (wfil was listed in the inquirer in 1955 as an abc/dumont affiliate).
>
> Didn't the Cleveland Browns/WJW-8/Carling network begin
> before CBS had major involvement with the NFL?? With WJW a
> CBS affiliate, the station may have eventually agreed to
> distribute Browns' games regionally on CBS.
i believe you may be right. in fact, in the mid-50's the browns had TWO networks circa 1954-1955. the carling network, which ken coleman was the pxp announcer and a regional cbs network with bob wolff (pxp)and curly morrison (color). as best as i can relate, in 1956, the carling network was national and the cbs network was dropped, but there were cbs affiliates that dotted the browns/carling landscape, including the wjw in cleveland itself. it stayed like this in 57 and 58. by 1959 (and thru 1961), the national end of the browns network was dropped, and became strictly regional in nature. the cbs browns affiliates then formed a bit of a "co-op" with the cbs lions network, where if the browns were home, they would link up with the cbs lions games (not 100% certain of this, but i believe this is probable). the production of the browns network was handled by sni, the forerunner of the hughes sports network.
>
> I wonder whether teams who had "independent" networks
> reaching lots of cities (Washington for a time in the early
> 1950's and Cleveland for many years) televised home games in
> the home city. Both teams' networks were probably so vast
> that their regions (and in Cleveland's case, nationally for
> a time) extended hundreds of miles from the teams' home
> cities. This might have allowed the teams to cover home
> games, and although blacked out in the team's home city,
> would have been televised across the rest of the network's
> "footprint".
the redskins network even into the cbs years, had the entire south to themselves until the falcons joined the nfl in 1966. the bears and cardinals had a massive network that reached the mountain time zone, texas and much of the upper midwest until the cowboys cut into that in 1960, and the cardinals portioned out some of that turf when they moved to st. louis in 1960, and the upper midwest and much of the u.s. northen tier (the dakotas, montana) went to the vikings when came in the nfl in 1961.
in terms of home blackouts, it looks like 1952 and 1953 were the big years when the home market blackouts were gaining speed. i think each team had a semblance of blackout rules in effect by 1956, and then in 1956 the nfl standard blackout 75 mile radius rule came into being.
hope this clarifies the situation a little bit, and this is the best of my knowledge and understanding of the situation.
tb
