Play-by-Play

Radio, Television, and Big-Time College Sport

Ronald A. Smith

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9780801876929
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Education General
• Index: Social Sciences

Noted sports historian writes on the relationship of the media to college athletics.

Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2003 by Choice Magazine

The phenomenal popularity of college athletics owes as much to media coverage of games as it does to drum-beating alumni and frantic undergraduates. Play-by-play broadcasts of big college games began in the 1920s via radio, a medium that left much to the listener's imagination and stoked interest in college football. After World War II, the rise of television brought with it network-NCAA deals that reeked of money and fostered bitter jealousies between have and have-not institutions. In Play-by-Play: Radio, Television, and Big-Time College Sport noted author and sports insider Ronald A. Smith examines the troubled relationship between higher education and the broadcasting industry, the effects of TV revenue on college athletics (notably football), and the odds of achieving meaningful reform.

Beginning with the early days of radio, Smith describes the first bowl game broadcasts, the media image of Notre Dame and coach Knute Rockne, and the threat broadcasting seemed to pose to college football attendance. He explores the beginnings of television, the growth of networks, the NCAA decision to control football telecasts, the place of advertising, the role of TV announcers, and the threat of NCAA "Robin Hoods" and the College Football Association to NCAA television control. Taking readers behind the scenes, he explains the culture of the college athletic department and reveals the many ways in which broadcasting dollars make friends in the right places. Play-by-Play is an eye-opening look at the political infighting invariably produced by the deadly combination of university administrators, athletic czars, and huge revenue.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. The Media and Early College Sport
• 2. Marconi, the Wireless, and Early Sports Broadcasting
• 3. The Broadcasters
• 4. Graham McNamee and Ted Husing Dominate the Airwaves
• 5. The Radio Threat to College Football Attendance
• 6. In the Image of Rockne: Notre Dame and Radio Policy
• 7. Radio Goes "Bowling": The Rose Bowl Leads the Way
• 8. Sport and the New Medium of Television
• 9. Networks, Coaxial Cable, Commercialism, and Concern
• 10. Notre Dame Chooses Commercial TV
• 11. Penn Challenges the NCAA and the Ivy League
• 12. The NCAA Experimental Year
• 13. Networks: The Du Mont Challenge
• 14. Regional Conferences Challenge a National Policy
• 15. TV and the Threat of Professional Football
• 16. Roone Arledge and the Influence of ABC-TV
• 17. Advertising, Image versus Money, and the Beer Hall Incident
• 18. The Television Announcer's Role in Football Promotion
• 19. The Cable Television Dilemma: More May Be Less
• 20. TV Money, Robin Hood, and the Birth of the CFA
• 21. TV Property Rights and a CFA Challenge to the NCAA
• 22. Oklahoma and Georgia Carry the TV Ball for the CFA Team
• 23. TV, Home Rule Anarchy, and Conference Realignments
• 24. Basketball: From Madison Square Garden to a Televised Final Four
• 25. TV's Unfinished Business: The Division I-A Football Championship
• Appendix: Radio, TV, and Big-Time College Sport: A Timeline
• Notes
• Bibliographical Essay
• Index