Before the USA Network came to be (1969-1979) Manhattan Cable and HBO Manhattan Cable (subsequently referred to as the
MSG Network) debuted in the spring of 1969 and did all home events from the
Madison Square Garden:
New York Knicks basketball,
New York Rangers hockey, college basketball, horse shows,
Golden Gloves boxing, tennis, the
Westminster Dog Show, ice capades, professional wrestling, etc. The first reference to the channel as “MSG Network” was sometime around 1971–72, although the name did not become official until 1977. The first televised events were
NHL and
NBA playoffs in the spring of 1969; in those playoffs
Marty Glickman did play-by-play for the
Knicks broadcasts while
Win Elliott did play-by-play for the
Rangers. Meanwhile,
HBO began simulcasting some MSG games in 1972 beginning with the
Rangers/
Vancouver Canucks game on November 8,
1972 (the first ever program televised on HBO, to a few subscribers in
Wilkes-Barre, PA). 1974–75 marked the only year in which HBO used MSG announcers for their feed. Because HBO is a premium cable service, this created a burden on announcers to fill in dead airtime on HBO while commercials aired on MSG Network. HBO did not broadcast Knicks or Rangers games after the 1976–77 season.
UA-Columbia When the MSG/HBO marriage ended in 1977, Madison Square Garden proceeded to seek a new partner to launch a national network to show off its events. So for several years, beginning with the 1977–78 season, all MSG home events (such as those involving the
Knicks,
Rangers, etc.) were then televised on a fledgling network that would eventually become known as the USA Network. This channel, which debuted in September 1977, was basically a continuation of the existing MSG Network. The key difference however, was that it was now nationally syndicated via satellite rather than terrestrially. It was also the first cable channel to be supported by advertising revenues. By this time, the channel was officially called the “Madison Square Garden Network” or MSG Network. In , the
National Hockey League replaced their
syndicated coverage package
The NHL Network with a package on USA. At the time, the USA Network was called
UA-Columbia. As the immediate forerunner for the USA Network, UA-Columbia, served as the cable syndicated arm of
MSG Network in
New York,
PRISM channel in
Philadelphia, and whatever pay/cable outlets were around in 1979.
The formation of the USA Network On April 9, 1980, the Madison Square Garden Network changed its name to the
USA Network. This occurred when the ownership structure was reorganized under a
joint operating agreement by the
UA-
Columbia Cablevision cable system (now known as
Cablevision Systems Corporation) and
MCA (then the parent of
Universal Studios, now owned by
NBCUniversal). Things took a step further one year later when,
Time Inc. (which eventually merged with Warner Communications to form
Time Warner) and
Paramount Pictures Corp. (then a division of
Gulf+Western, now owned by
Viacom) took minority ownership stakes in USA in 1981. G+W also owned the New York Knicks and the
MSG regional sports television network (both later owned by Cablevision, but spun off in 2010).
1981-84 coverage When the USA Network signed a three-year (running through the
1981-82 season),
$1.5 million deal, it marked the first time that the NBA had a
cable television partner. USA would extend their deal with a two-year contract (along with another cable partner in the form of
ESPN) worth a total of $11 million. USA typically aired approximately 35–40 regular season doubleheaders on Thursday nights. Besides regular season and
playoff action, USA also broadcast the
NBA draft. •
Hubie Brown •
Lou Carnesecca (an analyst for USA's draft coverage) •
Eddie Doucette •
Steve Jones •
Jim Karvellas • Tom Kelly •
Jon McGlocklin •
Richie Powers In
1980, USA televised two NBA games on
Christmas Day.
Jim Karvellas and Richie Powers called the early game involving
New Jersey at
Washington. Meanwhile, Eddie Doucette and Steve Jones called the late game involving
Golden State at
Portland. During the 1981–82 season, Al Albert and Hubie Brown called the early game while Eddie Doucette and Steve "Snapper" Jones called the late game. Hubie Brown was subsequently replaced by Jon McGlocklin as Al Albert's partner. The
1982 NBA Finals documentary "Something To Prove" recaps all the action of this series. It was the last NBA video documentary to exclusively use film in all on-court action.
Dick Stockton narrated the documentary, with the condensed USA Network version narrated by
Al Albert.
Conference Finals broadcasters ==See also==