The long history of sports broadcasting

While the stars, coaches, and trainers are key to any sporting spectacle, there’s one constant that adds to the excitement and glory of the event⁠—the broadcasting.

Sports broadcasting has existed for more than a hundred years now and has unquestionably changed the sporting landscape. Many still flood to stadiums, fields, and arenas to get their sporting fixes, but many millions more flick on their televisions and set-top boxes to see their favourite teams or individual superstars battle it out for silverware and supreme triumphs. Broadcasting companies profit heavily from having exclusive rights to the games while pundits discuss the betting markets while trying to predict the unpredictable. 

Every day sees more sports broadcasting platforms join the fray too, from Kayo Sports, which includes Fox Sports, ESPN, and Racing.com coverage, to Optus Sport⁠—mainly for the English Premier League in Australia⁠—Stan Sport, and plenty more.

The market wasn’t always so saturated though, with every sport you could dream up available at the flick of a button. To understand broadcasting today you have to go back 113 years ago, to Lawrence, Kansas.

Kansas vs. Missouri: The original “broadcast”

While we may not call it a truly traditional radio broadcast, sports were first shared with more than 1,000 people over soundwaves when Western Union replayed the audio recordings of a Kansas vs. Missouri football match after the game was played live in Missouri⁠—a modern spectacle.

It was an enormous affair. WU ran a telegraph wire from Columbia to Lawrence where several people were waiting to move a huge field model with players.

This model was tried again several years later, in Dallas, Texas, when a radio announcer who was speaking to listeners in Dallas was telegraphed details about the game and read them out like a play, pretending he was seeing the action. It was a novel idea that those listening enjoyed, but it was never going to be viable… and it wasn’t the first like that Lawrence attempt.

Voice hits the airwaves

Radio presented a new widespread chance for sports broadcasting. The voice broadcast started, like most things in the 20th century, in the U.S. when a Pittsburgh station hosted a live call on a 10-round boxing bout. That same station cast the Pirates vs. the Phillies from Forbes Field several months later.

In Australia, racing became the first scene to truly embrace radio calls, though there were some clubs that banned the broadcasting from their courses in an attempt to stop punters from staying at home. That didn’t last long, however, and huge names like Joe Brown, Bert Bryant, and Bill Collins pioneered what we know today as the classic race-calling voice, energy, and vibe.

After 3DB, 3UZ, and the ABC had success with racing, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation took a stab at cricket. It was an instant success, especially after Edgar Mayne called every Test ball from the Melbourne Cricket Ground when Australia faced off against bitter rivals England in 1925. The next twenty years saw cricket and racing lead the way in radio sports broadcasting, culminating after the Second World War when Alan McGilvray, Tim Lane, and A.G. Johnny Moyes became cricket’s leading voices right as radio hit its pinnacle in the late 1940s.

Television changes the game again

Then, the small screen in everyone’s loungerooms changed everything again. While Australia wouldn’t get standard televised broadcasts until the 1950s, things actually came a lot earlier overseas.

First, the Berlin Olympics in 1936 were filmed and fired out to televisions⁠—though the only problem was barely anyone had a box to receive the transmission. Three years later, the U.S. had its first live sports show in May 1939, when NBC videoed and aired the Princeton Tigers playing the Columbia Lions in a college baseball match. In September that same year, Waynesburg College vs. Fordham became the first college football game streamed live anywhere. This, again, was on a smaller scale, with only local set-top boxes being able to tune in.

From the 1940s onwards, programs showing sports exploded. The 1950s saw nationwide footage beginning to air in unified shows, which was helped by more than 200,000 televisions being sold in Australia by the end of the decade.

There were snags, like when W.S. Kent-Hughes tried to sell the 1956 rights to the Melbourne Olympics and had barely any offers, but by the 1970s heavyweights like GTV9 (known today as Nine Entertainment Co) and HSV7 (Seven Network) had picked up golf, cricket, and Australian football; still then the VFL. Channel Ten in Brisbane came several years later and SBS-TV landed in Sydney in 1981.

Sports broadcasting in Australia today

Today we are well and truly in the age of digital broadcasting, with channels Nine, Ten, Seven, and the ABC duking it out with instant-streaming services like Foxtel and Kayo, Stan Sports, ESPN, bEIN, and more. The NRL, AFL, and Australia cricket command multi-million dollar contracts, as do international juggernauts like the Premier League, America’s NBA and NFL competitions, and the Olympics.

Every television, phone, and PC has the ability to turn on sports⁠—as long as you’re paying those subscriptions⁠—and catch the latest jump at Randwick or the next ball bowled at Lords during the Ashes.

In Australia, you can now watch sports everywhere from:

• ABC
• Amazon Prime Video
• Apple TV Plus
• beIN Sports
• Channel Seven
• DAZN
• Foxtel Now
• Kayo Sports
• Nine
• Optus Sport
• Paramount Plus
• Stan Sport
• Channel Ten Network
• Twitch

Where the world of sports broadcasting goes next remains to be seen, but considering how quickly everything has grown in just a hundred years, we’re sure it’s going to continue to evolve at a breakneck pace. We’ve already gone from telegraphs read out as “play-by-plays” to the footy at our fingertips and in our pockets. Next, we might be travelling right to the sidelines virtually.