Friday, October 3, 2014

First Televised College Football Game

Tonight's Fordham game--go Rams--against Lafayette, which will air on CBS Sports, will be a stepping point to a discussion of college football and sports broadcasting history. Recently, on September 30, the 75th anniversary of a milestone college football game came and went without too much fanfare (I must give credit to the Wall Street Journal for their article). On that day in 1939 the Fordham Rams scheduled a tune-up game against Waynesburg that was aired on NBC television. It was not only the first college football game ever aired on television but also beat the NFL to the punch by three weeks. Due to the need to be as close to their signal at the Empire State Building, NBC asked Fordham, a national power in the 1930s, to play the game at the then second-rate, now torn down, Triborough Stadium on Randall's Island. Used to playing before packed crowds at the Polo Grounds the Rams agreed to have the Waynesburg game televised and not the more important Alabama contest scheduled for a week later or any of the other contests against powers that came to New York that year like Pitt and Rice. Although Waynesburg opened the scoring on a 63-yard run by Bobby Brooks, the Rams soon took charge and coasted to a 34-7 win. The Rams outgained the visiting Yellow Jackets 337-157y. It is estimated that 1000 sets tuned in to the broadcast with Bill Stern supplying play-by-play and a young Mel Allen providing updates. Only one camera was used. On October 22nd the Brooklyn Dodgers football team hosted the Eagles on television to begin the media's long romance with the pro game. New York being the epicenter of television in 1939 allowed the Dodgers baseball team to become the first in that sport to host a televised game with the Reds in town in late August of that year and four months earlier the Columbia baseball team had the first-ever televised sporting event when they hosted Princeton. Then on February 28 of 1940 college basketball was first televised when Fordham played Pitt at Madison Square Garden. There will be a bigger production for tonight's game but hopefully a similar outcome.

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