Canada Broadcasting of sports started with descriptions of play sent via
telegraph in the 1890s. Later that month, the first full-game broadcast took place in Winnipeg. That same season, hockey broadcasting pioneer
Foster Hewitt made his first broadcast. In 1933, Hewitt called an
olympic games-wide radio broadcast of an NHL game between the
Detroit Red Wings and the
Toronto Maple Leafs. Always starting the broadcast with "Hello, Canada, and hockey fans in the United States and
Newfoundland!"; this phrase stuck around (albeit without the "Newfoundland" portion after the dominion confederated into Canada in 1949) all the way to
CBC's first national television broadcast (the first actual broadcast was on
closed-circuit in
Maple Leaf Gardens in Spring 1952) of
Hockey Night in Canada in October 1952. Today it is consistently among the highest-rated programs in Canada. Broadcasting of the
Canadian Football League has been a fixture of Canadian television since the CBC's debut in 1952. From 1962 (one year after the debut of
CTV) through 2007, there were two separate CFL contracts: one for CBC, and one for CTV (or a sister channel such as cable outlet
TSN). Terrestrial television broadcasts of CFL games ended in 2008, when TSN acquired exclusive TV rights to the league. American sports broadcasts are widely available in Canada, both from Canadian stations and from
border blasters in the United States. In order to protect Canadian broadcasters' advertising, broadcast stations can invoke
simultaneous substitution: any cable or satellite feed of an American station broadcasting the same program as a Canadian broadcast station must be
blacked out and replaced by the Canadian feed. This rule is part of the reason the NFL, which is broadcast on terrestrial television in the United States but has no direct presence in Canada, is also broadcast on terrestrial TV in Canada, while the CFL no longer is (the CFL is broadcast only on cable in the United States); the simultaneous substitution benefits are not extended to cable stations. For the purposes of
regional sports broadcasting, the
Toronto Blue Jays and
Toronto Raptors both claim all of Canada as their "territory", allowing Blue Jays and Raptors games to be broadcast nationwide.
Ireland The first live commentary on a field sport anywhere in Europe was when Paddy Mehigan covered the All-Ireland Hurling Semi-Final between Kilkenny and Galway on 29 August 1926. This game is credited with being the first mainly because the BBC was prevented from broadcasting sporting events before 7.00pm as a means of protecting British newspaper sales. Originally there was no sports department for Irish radio. Gaelic Games and live commentary were very popular with Irish radio. One prominent figure was
Seán Óg Ó Ceallacháin who broadcast for the Gaelic Games and live commentary weekly beginning in 1930. Many sports were covered in Irish broadcasting including Bridge tournaments.
United Kingdom Radio The first sports event broadcast on radio in Europe was a
boxing contest for the Flyweight Championship of Great Britain and Europe between
Elky Clark of
Scotland and Kid Socks of England. relayed from the
National Sporting Club in
London on 26 February 1926. Further boxing commentaries were broadcast by the
BBC on 29 March 1926, a British featherweight title defence by
Johnny Curley, and 6 October 1927, when
Teddy Baldock lost his claim to the British version of the World bantamweight title to South African Willie Smith. The first outdoor sports event broadcast in the United Kingdom was a
Rugby Union international between
England and
Wales, broadcast from
Twickenham in January 1927. Two weeks later the first broadcast of a
football match took place, with the BBC covering
Arsenal's league fixture against
Sheffield United at
Highbury. Listeners to the broadcast could use numbered grids published in the
Radio Times in order to ascertain in which area of the pitch (denoted as "squares") the action was taking place due to a second commentator reading out grid references during the match. The BBC broadcasts almost all major sports events. Initially broadcast as a MW opt-out on
BBC Radio 2, The launch of
Radio 5 in 1990 saw a huge increase in the level of coverage on BBC Radio. Radio 5 became
BBC Radio 5 Live in 1994 and the station, which combines live news and sport, provides round-the-clock coverage of sport through both live commentary and sports news and discussion. Live cricket commentary is broadcast on 5 Live's digital sports channel BBC 5 Sports Extra. This includes cricket coverage which is also aired on the long wave frequencies of BBC Radio 4.
BBC Local Radio provides extensive coverage of sport, giving more exposure to second-tier football clubs which would otherwise receive limited national coverage. The BBC's main commercial rival is
Talksport, but this has not acquired anywhere near as many exclusive contracts as Sky Sports and instead dedicates much of its airtime to sports discussions and phone-ins.
TV The first sporting event to be televised in the UK was the Epsom Derby on June 3, 1931. Other early broadcasts include an international boxing tournament between England and Ireland from
Alexandra Palace on 4 February 1937. The United Kingdom saw the first live television broadcast of a
football match, with the BBC showing 20 minutes of a specially arranged fixture between Arsenal and Arsenal Reserves on 17 September 1937. The British media is dominated by national outlets, with local media playing a much smaller role. Traditionally the BBC played a dominant role in televising sport, providing extensive high-quality advertisement free coverage and free publicity in exchange for being granted broadcast rights for low fees.
ITV broadcast a smaller portfolio of events, and
Channel 4 broadcast a few events from the 1980s, mainly horse races and so-called "minority sports". In the early 1990s this arrangement was shaken up by the arrival of
pay-TV in the form of BSkyB and its sports channel
Sky Sports. Their dedicated sports channels have since become the only place for some major sports to be seen. Starting in 2006, the Irish company
Setanta Sports emerged as a challenger to Sky Sports' dominance of the British pay-TV sports market; however, Setanta's UK channel went into bankruptcy administration and off the air in 2009. Between 2009 and 2013
ESPN made
an attempt to challenge Sky Sports before its British operations were bought out by Sky's current main competitor,
TNT Sports; a joint venture between former national telecommunications monopoly
BT Group and
Warner Bros. Discovery. There is also a dedicated UK version of
Eurosport, called British Eurosport, and
Viaplay Sports, which replaced Premier Sports in 2022, also broadcasts live and recorded sports coverage.
United States National and local media both serve major roles in broadcasting
sports in the United States. Depending on the league and event, telecasts are often shown live on
network television (traditionally on weekends and during major events either national through a
television network, or in some cases, regionally
syndicated by an operation such as
Raycom Sports or a team), and nationally available
cable channels (such as
ESPN or
Fox Sports 1). In some leagues (such as the
NHL and the
NBA), events are also primarily shown by
regional sports networks groups (such as
Fox Sports Networks), networks which air telecasts for teams of local interest, which are usually only carried within the relevant market. Additionally, cable channels also exist that are dedicated to specific types of sports, certain
college sports conferences, or a specific league.
Pay-per-view broadcasts are typically restricted to combat sports such as boxing, mixed martial arts or professional wrestling. Radio broadcasts are extensive. The national leagues each have national network coverage of league high games in addition to local radio coverage originating with each team, with
ESPN Radio and
WestwoodOne controlling national rights to the major team sports and the motorsports circuits operating their own networks. Local radio broadcasts cover a wide variety of sports, ranging from the majors to local school and recreational leagues. Internet broadcasts are also common, though college and major professional sports either use a
pay wall or subscriber-based systems such as
TV Everywhere to extract payment. Telephone broadcasts are rare, although a few companies provide the service.
History during a
TFF First League match In 1911, more than 1,000 people gathered in downtown
Lawrence, Kansas to watch a mechanical reproduction of the
1911 Kansas vs. Missouri football game while it was being played. A
Western Union telegraph wire was set up direct from
Columbia, Missouri. A group of people then would announce the results of the previous play and used a large model of a football playing field to show the results. Those in attendance cheered as though they were watching the game live, including the school's legendary
Rock Chalk, Jayhawk cheer. This was followed on Thanksgiving 1919 by the first true broadcast (as opposed to the 1911 point-to-point transmission) of a college football game, over 5XB, the experimental station that eventually became
WTAW; that year's
Lone Star Shootout was, as with the Kansas/Missouri game, distributed in telegraph code but was open to anyone listening to the station. The first voice broadcast of a sporting event took place on April 11, 1921 when Westinghouse station
KDKA in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania broadcast a 10-round, no decision
boxing match between
Johnny Dundee and Johnny Ray at Pittsburgh's
Motor Square Garden. The event was reported by Florent Gibson, the first sports broadcaster. The first
radio broadcast of a baseball game occurred on August 5, 1921 over KDKA from Pittsburgh's
Forbes Field.
Harold W. Arlin announced a game between the
Pittsburgh Pirates and the
Philadelphia Phillies. Two months later, on October 8, 1921, from the same Forbes Field, Arlin announced the
first live radio broadcast of a college football game on KDKA when he gave the play-by-play action of the
University of Pittsburgh victory over
West Virginia University. On May 17, 1939, the United States' first televised sporting event, a college baseball game between the
Columbia Lions and
Princeton Tigers, was broadcast by
NBC from Columbia's
Baker Field. (The world's first live televised sporting event had been the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.) On September 30, 1939, the first
American football game, a college contest between
Fordham and Waynesburg College was broadcast on television. The first nationwide broadcast of college football, which was also the first live sporting event seen coast-to-coast, was a game between
Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh that was televised by NBC on September 29, 1951. The
broadcasting of college football games on television in the United States has been a fixture of the major networks on a continuous basis since that time. The NCAA severely restricted broadcasts of college football from the 1950s until a judge ruled that the action was a violation of antitrust rules in
1984, which allowed for a much greater expansion of college football broadcasting. NBC broadcast the first televised
National Football League (NFL) game when they carried the October 22, 1939 game between the
Philadelphia Eagles and the
Brooklyn Dodgers. The same year, the first nationwide radio broadcast of an NFL championship game was carried on the
Mutual Broadcasting System. While the NFL had weak television deals that ranked behind college football and even the
Canadian Football League in the 1950s, the
broadcast rights of the NFL would go on to become an important property following the
1958 NFL Championship and the later establishment of the
American Football League in 1960.
Monday Night Football,
NFL on Fox, and
NBC Sunday Night Football have changed the landscape of American football broadcasts, including the scheduling of the
Super Bowl, transforming it from an afternoon broadcast into a primetime spectacle. The price for the NFL's broadcast rights has increased steadily over the past several decades, in part because of bidding wars between the numerous networks and the
fear of losing stature due to the loss of NFL programming; as of the most recent contract the league nets annual fees of over $6 billion, or half of the league's overall revenue, from television rights alone. Four of the five major sports television units in the United States, and the four companies that control all of the major broadcast networks, currently own some NFL rights. NBC also broadcast an NHL game in 1940; the league would briefly air games in the 1950s, but due to a dispute over how much of the rights fee money the players would receive (and difficulties programming around the two Canadian teams in the league
at the time), the NHL refused to televise its games in the United States for six years in the 1960s. For this reason, as well as the regional nature of the sport, televised NHL games have struggled to gain a foothold on American television for the past several decades, trailing the other leagues in ratings. After several decades of bouncing around various networks (and a stretch from 1975 to 1994 when the league had no permanent broadcast partner), the NHL established a stable broadcast partner in 2004, when
NBC and what was then
Outdoor Life Network (now
NBCSN) took over NHL broadcast rights; they have since renewed those rights through 2021. The first-ever television broadcast of a basketball game occurred on February 28, 1940 when the University of Pittsburgh defeated
Fordham at
Madison Square Garden on
NBC station W2XBS. Professional basketball has been aired on television since 1953, shortly after the founding of the
National Basketball Association, and has been aired on television ever since. College basketball, on the other hand, was much later in gaining a television foothold. Although the NCAA Tournament has aired since 1962, it was not until the mid-1970s that regular-season college basketball games would air on major network television. Outside of the networks, the only other source for national sports television was through early
syndication networks. Sports Network Incorporated (SNI), later renamed the
Hughes Television Network, carried
Cleveland Browns (NFL) games in the 1950s and NHL games in the late 1970s, after the NHL lost its contract with NBC.
TVS Television Network helped popularize the broadcasts of college basketball and also gave an outlet to the short-lived
World Football League.
Mizlou Television Network earned a reputation for carrying a large number of college football
bowl games in an era when televised college football was highly restricted. Modern syndication networks still exist for sporting events, such as
Raycom Sports and
American Sports Network, both of which specialize in college sports. The debut of
ESPN in 1979 revolutionized the broadcasting of sports events. Within several years of ESPN's founding as a basic cable channel, it had developed a stable of sports broadcasts ranging from major leagues to oddities. ESPN has since grown into a massive multiplexed network, with several channels and a large news bureau that has led to the network bestowing the title of "Worldwide Leader in Sports" upon itself. Cable, and later digital cable and satellite, greatly expanded the number of channels (and, by extension, the room for broadcasting sports events) available on a given set, and also gave channels such as ESPN the ability to broadcast direct and nationwide, as opposed to dealing with local affiliates. Syndication networks gave way to
regional sports networks, which carried broadcasts of local sports on a far greater scale than full-service broadcast stations could provide at the time; these combined with
out-of-market sports packages (which debuted in the 1990s) allowed the carriage of these networks' sporting events across the country. However, with the increased availability of sports to broadcast came increasing rights fees, which could be recovered by the newly authorized practice of collecting
retransmission consent fees from cable subscribers, which has led to numerous disputes and the dropping of channels from cable lineups. Individual leagues began launching their own networks in the 2000s; specialty networks of other sports have had varying levels of success. One of the first live high-definition sports broadcasts in the U.S. took place in September 1998 in which a football game between
Ohio State and
West Virginia, aired on
WBNS-TV. The station claims this to have been the first locally produced HD broadcast in the U.S.; however, as several other stations throughout the country also lay claim to this distinction, the veracity cannot be verified. It is widely considered the first ever live sports game in HD in the U.S. produced using a production truck and transmission vehicle from
NHK,
Japan's national
public broadcasting organization. The Internet has also allowed greater broadcasting of sports events, both in video and audio forms and through free and subscription channels. With an Internet broadcast, even a locally broadcast high school football game can be heard worldwide on any device with an audio output and an Internet connection. Individual leagues (including major ones) all have subscription services that allow subscribers to watch their sporting events for a fee. One of the first live sporting events in the U.S. to be streamed was the Ohio State spring football game in 2001 by
WBNS-TV. The game was delivered on
RealVideo, a compressed video format, on the
RealPlayer media player platform on the station's website. It also was distributed to
Windows Mobile mobile devices using the
Windows Media Player format, including
Compaq's
IPAQ personal digital assistant which required an
ExpressCard to connect to the
Internet. ==Rights and contracts==