stever20 wrote:NJRedman wrote:ESPN was literally in a trailer airing darts and D level sports when the big east came along. They were not airing the ACC and Big Ten then.
They aired some of the 1980 NCAA tourney, which was 6 months after they launched.
Also, according to Wiki, they absolutely did air the ACC and Big Ten:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... propertiesACC : 1979–2027
Big Ten: 1979–2017
Ok, so back in 1980 or so, there were only a few early round NCAA games that were televised nationally. NBC would show several national games on the weekend, but they would be like UCLA and the big names only, until you reached the Elite-8. Even then, you didn't have access to each game. The exception was if a local team was playing early round, then your local VHF station would carry the game.
So in 1978, our local affiliate in Providence televised the Friars-Michigan State game and the Duke-URI game. For any other early round games, occasionally local UHF stations would buy the feed of other random early round game that might have a smidge of local interest. Otherwise, most games were completely unavailable. To get a score, we'd have to wait til the 11pm local news sports, or we would often call the Providence Journal sports department, where some grouchy lady would allow us to ask for 3 scores only.
So, in 1979, the Sweet 16 game between Syracuse and Penn wasn't televised on NBC in Providence, but luckily was picked up by UHF Channel 27 out of Worcester. This required us to twist the UHF dial like a safecracker to pick up the station, but it would be a snowy, staticky feed. (on a side note, we also got the staticky feed anytime we watched Bruins games on Boston's TV-38, and could never find the puck).
Anyway, Channel 27 didn't have their own crew sent to the Syracuse-Penn game. Instead it was probably NBC or the Syracuse announcers, and Channel 27 picked up their feed. In the same way, I think ESPN would pick up random game feeds. They wouldn't send out their own crews. I think, I'm going by memory here. We didnt get cable in my town til 1983 (what do you think, i lived in some fancy place like Cranston?). I think it wasn't til their Big East contract that they went all out with their own crews. Even then, Gavitt had to spoonfeed ESPN, where he himself would do play by play or color. I think that's the difference here.
I'm guessing the ESPN's Big Ten and ACC coverage referenced in the wiki link was also just ESPN picking up local ACC feeds and putting it on their satellite. I looked for the answer but couldn't find anything definite.
The wiki link also has holes, like it doesn't say anything about ESPN covering Aussie Rules Football early on, but I remember watching Aussie games in the 80's. Who can forget those great Geelong vs Collington matchups.
Anyway, this is an interesting discussion. Full wall-to-wall NCAA Tourney coverage didn't happen til past the late 80's. We didn't get the 1989 Georgetown-Princeton game televised, though it was played at the sold out Dunk. The 1986 Brown-Syracuse game wasn't shown live on any Providence station.
Anyhoo, I've written too long of a post here.