September 7, 1979, ESPN goes on the air.

[seatownmedia]

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.

I may have mistaken what I thought were ESPN or SPN, when in truth it was MSG. This makes way more sense as the only cable channels in my location in Idaho, other than the locals (Spokane), were a sports channel and HBO. I understand MSG had an agreement with HBO in the late 70's. In fact it appears HBO then was on the air for only part of the day so my thinking is MSG was to fill the other hours. I think you helped me solve this!

 

[FreddyE1977]

ESPN held virtually no broadcast rights at that time, so in between SportCenters we saw
hours and hours and hours of taped Australian Rules football.

Had not seen it again for years until recently.
Was disappointed to see that the goal judges had stopped wearing Panama hats and long white trench coats.

 

[CTListener]

ESPN held virtually no broadcast rights at that time, so in between SportCenters we saw
hours and hours and hours of taped Australian Rules football.

Had not seen it again for years until recently.
Was disappointed to see that the goal judges had stopped wearing Panama hats and long white trench coats.

There was also lots of boxing, mostly from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, rodeo from Mesquite, Texas, and a weekly volleyball series matching teams from the Canadian provinces an a sort of league format.

In the early days of SportsCenter, some leagues and teams were not allowing ESPN to use their video for highlights, so the host would have to just give the score and move on. The Red Sox and their then-flagship TV station, WSBK, were one of those. Never saw Red Sox highlights until more than a year after ESPN launched.

 

[Don CT]

There was also lots of boxing, mostly from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, rodeo from Mesquite, Texas, and a weekly volleyball series matching teams from the Canadian provinces an a sort of league format.

In the early days of SportsCenter, some leagues and teams were not allowing ESPN to use their video for highlights, so the host would have to just give the score and move on. The Red Sox and their then-flagship TV station, WSBK, were one of those. Never saw Red Sox highlights until more than a year after ESPN launched.

What changed for ESPN was getting the NFL and full rights to the highlights.

 

[CTListener]

What changed for ESPN was getting the NFL and full rights to the highlights.

The only exceptions now seem to be the Olympics (Comcast/NBC) and PPV boxing other than fights promoted by Top Rank, with which ESPN has a relationship. You still see still photos displayed on SportsCenter for those events.

IIRC, in the early years, there were MLB teams that were OK with ESPN using their highlights and others that were not. The NFL had a similar problem when it wanted to stream its regular season audio. Flagships owned by CBS wanted no part of that newfangled interweb thing and put the kibosh on the Vikings and Giants freeing up their audio for streaming anywhere. Listeners at NFL.com got the opponent's feed only. I'm not sure if there were any Giants-Vikings games that were blacked out totally. Anyway, the situation was resolved after one season.

 

[Don CT]

The only exceptions now seem to be the Olympics (Comcast/NBC) and PPV boxing other than fights promoted by Top Rank, with which ESPN has a relationship. You still see still photos displayed on SportsCenter for those events.

The Olympics have more to do with the IOC holding onto their content so tightly. NBC and ESPN did have an agreement showing highlights at one point.

 

[KML0224]

I'd love to know how many cable systems carried ESPN from the beginning? We're presently Comcast in New Britain, CT. The same cable company served New Britain and Bristol (ESPN's home since day 1) in 1979. The cable head end was in between these two cities on Cooke Street in Plainville. I want to say it was United Cable then (it was when I first got cable in New Britain, back in the spring of 1981).

Along similar lines, I think the first cable company which carried MTV on their 1981 launch was in New Jersey.

I do know that ESPN 2 launched in 1993. The cable in New Britain didn't carry it for nearly the first two months.

 

[Don CT]

I'd love to know how many cable systems carried ESPN from the beginning? We're presently Comcast in New Britain, CT. The same cable company served New Britain and Bristol (ESPN's home since day 1) in 1979. The cable head end was in between these two cities on Cooke Street in Plainville. I want to say it was United Cable then (it was when I first got cable in New Britain, back in the spring of 1981).

Along similar lines, I think the first cable company which carried MTV on their 1981 launch was in New Jersey.

I do know that ESPN 2 launched in 1993. The cable in New Britain didn't carry it for nearly the first two months.

ESPN 2 was originally on the newly formed "digital tier" when it started. ESPNews took years to arrive.

ESPN 2 was supposed to be the channel for more extreme sports.

 

[ThePowerCow]

ESPN did business news in the morning in the early years. Then fitness shows.

 

[CTListener]

ESPN did business news in the morning in the early years. Then fitness shows.

The business news (with Consuelo Mack, who is still in the business with the syndicated "WealthTrack" weekend show) didn't come along until about 10 years into ESPN's existence. It was a big deal at the time, the first non-sports program on the all-sports network.