The broadcasting of sports events (also known as a sportscast) is the live coverage of sports as a television program, on radio, and other broadcasting media. It usually involves one or more sports commentators describing events as they happen.
Origin
The broadcasting of sports events (also known as a sportscast) is the live coverage of sports as a television program, on radio, and other broadcasting media. It usually involves one or more sports commentators describing events as they happen. Sportscaster's environment is usually in booth, sets, and radio or television studios. Depending on the sportscasters specific job it is a time sensitive job, especially when depending on a play by play, they cannot miss any action, and due to their job they have to be flexible with schedule. Sports broadcasters have a variety of sections to deliver footage and their job can provide postgame coverage and interviews with athletes and coaches. Sports casting is a big industry throughout the United States and worldwide. Anything sports related, whether it's reading, watching, and hearing is a type of way sports broadcasting is in media. Sports broadcasters do more than just voice over plays and matches, they must be a part of researching their sports history and knowing game statistics. Studying sports and using facts is needed in their job and making the games exciting and entertaining.
History
Perhaps the first sports broadcast was by Guglielmo Marconi, who broadcast the 1899 America's Cup from New York Harbor. The first ever prerecorded sportscast occurred in 1911 in Kansas. The first recording had a group of people recreate plays of a football game, that were trying to learn of a play via telegraph, but wasn't official because no one was present. Ten years later in 1921 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the first radio broadcasting event occurred of a boxing match. Then the first televised sporting event occurred 1939, which was the summer olympics in the United States. In 1951, the first sports color telecast was a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves. As years went by more options were given to the public and the more popular sports broadcasting became. The first voice broadcasters happened, live broadcasting happened, and professional broadcasting happened. More media options became available to the public whether it be on newspapers, radio, or television.
As the number of people tuning in increased, so did the availabilities of where to hear and watch the broadcastings. Sports broadcasting also had an impact to the rise of American citizens being interested in being entertained. As more demand occurred from more sports broadcasters, the programing networks got more advanced with the technology as well.
By country
Canada
Broadcasting of sports started with descriptions of play sent via telegraph in the 1890s. In 1896, a telegraph line was connected to the Victoria Rink in Montreal to update fans in Winnipeg of the Stanley Cup challenge series between Montreal and Winnipeg ice hockey teams. In 1923, the first radio broadcast of an ice hockey game took place on 8 February, with the broadcast of the third period of a game between Midland and North Toronto of the Ontario Hockey Association. Later that month, the first full-game broadcast took place in Winnipeg. That same season, hockey broadcasting pioneer Foster Hewitt made his first broadcast.
In 1933, Hewitt called an olympic games-wide radio broadcast of an NHL game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Always starting the broadcast with "Hello, Canada, and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland!"; this phrase stuck around (albeit without the "Newfoundland" portion after the dominion confederated into Canada in 1949) all the way to CBC's first national television broadcast (the first actual broadcast was on closed-circuit in Maple Leaf Gardens in Spring 1952) of Hockey Night in Canada in October 1952. Today it is consistently among the highest-rated programs in Canada.
Broadcasting of the Canadian Football League has been a fixture of Canadian television since the CBC's debut in 1952. From 1962 (one year after the debut of CTV) through 2007, there were two separate CFL contracts: one for CBC, and one for CTV (or a sister channel such as cable outlet TSN). Terrestrial television broadcasts of CFL games ended in 2008, when TSN acquired exclusive TV rights to the league.