Origins Wide World of Sports was the creation of
Edgar Scherick through his company, Sports Programs, Inc. After selling his company to ABC, he hired a young
Roone Arledge to produce the show. The series' April 29, 1961, debut telecast featured both the
Penn and
Drake Relays.
Jim McKay (who hosted the program for most of its history) and
Jesse Abramson, the
track and field writer for the
New York Herald Tribune, broadcast from
Franklin Field with
Bob Richards as the
field reporter.
Jim Simpson called the action from
Drake Stadium with
Bill Flemming working the field. During its initial season in the spring and summer of 1961,
Wide World of Sports was initially broadcast from 5:00 to 7:00 P.M.
Eastern Time on Saturdays. Beginning in 1962, it was pushed to 5:00 to 6:30 P.M., and later to 4:30 to 6:00 P.M. Eastern Time to allow ABC affiliates in the Eastern and
Central Time Zones to carry local early-evening newscasts.
Successful spin-offs In 1961,
Wide World of Sports covered a
bowling event called the
PBA National Invitational in which
Roy Lown beat
Pat Patterson. The broadcast was so successful that in 1962, ABC Sports began covering the
Professional Bowlers Tour. In 1964,
Wide World of Sports covered the
Oklahoma Rattlesnake Hunt championships; the following year, ABC premiered outdoor program
The American Sportsman, which remained on the network for nearly 20 years. In 1973, the
Superstars was first televised as a segment on
Wide World of Sports; the following year, the
Superstars debuted as a weekly winter series that lasted for 10 years.
Athlete of the Year In 1963, ABC Sports producers began selecting the Athlete of the Year. Its first winner was
track and field star
Jim Beatty for being the first to run a sub-4-minute mile indoors. Through the years, this award was won by such now legendary athletes of
Muhammad Ali,
Jim Ryun,
Lance Armstrong,
Mario Andretti,
Dennis Conner,
Wayne Gretzky,
Carl Lewis and
Tiger Woods. The award was discontinued in 2001.
The end of Wide World of Sports In later years, with the rise of cable television offering more outlets for sports programming,
Wide World of Sports lost many of the events that had been staples of the program for many years (many, although not all, of them ended up on
ESPN, a sister network to ABC for most of its existence). Ultimately, its traditional anthology series was ended on June 21, 1997 after a 37-year run. The
Wide World of Sports name remained in use afterward as an umbrella title for ABC's weekend sports programming, starting January 3, 1998. In August 2006, ABC Sports came under the oversight of ESPN, under the relaunched banner name
ESPN on ABC. The
Wide World of Sports title continues to occasionally be revived for Saturday afternoon sports programming on ABC; it was used during the
140th Belmont Stakes as a tribute to Jim McKay following his death in June 2008, and in 2017 it was used for the revival of the
Battle of the Network Stars with a remake of the show's opening sequence. Most of ABC's sports programming since
Wide World of Sports ended as a program has been displaced from ABC and moved to ESPN; the cable network began producing its own anthology series on Saturday afternoons in 2010,
ESPN Sports Saturday, which consists of
documentaries originally featured on ESPN's
E:60 and
30 for 30 programs, and a modified version of the ESPN interactive series
SportsNation, titled
Winners Bracket. ==Format==