About the Book
ABC Sports shaped how the world consumes sport. The American Broadcasting Company's sports division is behind some of network television's most significant practices, celebrated personalities, and iconic moments. It created the weekend anthology Wide World of Sports, transformed professional football into a prime-time spectacle with Monday Night Football, fashioned the Olympics into a mega media event, and even revolutionized TV news. Travis Vogan's cultural and institutional history of ABC Sports examines the development of network sports television in the United States and the aesthetic, cultural, political, and industrial practices that mark it. ABC Sports traces the storied division from its beginnings through the internet age to reveal the changes it endured along with the new sports media environment it spawned.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: ABC Sports and Network Sports Television
1. The “Almost Broadcasting Company” and the Birth of ABC Sports
2. ABC’s Wide World of Sports: “The Seedbed of Modern Sports Television” and the Cold War
3. “Th e Network of the Olympics”: Starring Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell
4. Monday Night Football, Brian’s Song, and the Roots of the Prime-Time TV Event
5. Th e News from Munich on the “Arledge Broadcasting Company”
6. “What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports Is Going On Here?”: Trash Sports and Scandal
7. “No More Sacred Cows”: The End of ABC Sports’ Golden Age
Conclusion: From Wide World of Sports to the Worldwide Leader in Sports
Appendix 1: Wide World of Sports Inaugural Season Schedule, 1961
Appendix 2: ABC’s Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year
Appendix 3: Top Fifteen Television Audiences of All Time as of Roots’ Premiere
Appendix 4: Top Ten Most-Watched Wide World of Sports Episodes
Abbreviations
Notes
Index
