The First Televised MLB Game: A New Era in Sports Broadcasting

On August 26, 1993, the Brooklyn Dodgers took on the Cincinnati Reds in a National League showdown for a doubleheader at Dodgers-Ebbets Field. But what made this game special was it was the first time a professional baseball game, and specifically, that Major League Baseball had ever been televised. Done by the National Broadcasters Association, which we now know as NBC, it changed the sporting world forever and led to the money-making machine that sports are now. Today, we're going to dive into how this all happened today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. And today's trivia question is, how many people did Major League Baseball say watched that very first televised baseball game? Now, this was not the very first baseball game ever televised. That actually happened on May 17th. 1939, when NBC televised a college baseball game between the Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers. And NBC was actually originally a radio station. And then in 1939, RC and NBC started to develop new technology where they could broadcast images. what is now known as television. And they were experimenting in all different kinds of ways. First, they experimented on April 30th, 1939, with having the very first president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, appear on camera. And then on May 1st, they actually had the very first commercial and continued to experiment every year as it was the Wild West in broadcasting. And sports was no different. As everyone knew, baseball was the biggest sport in America at the time. We had just had Babe Ruth, and we were having the Joe DiMaggio Yankees come up into predominance. Baseball was top dog. And there were more fans than just in those cities. And they thought this would be a great option to connect to those fans. It wasn't until about 1930 when television started to really go on the market and to be sold. And at that point, only the wealthiest people could sell it. So that first college baseball game that was broadcast, was only able to reach about 400 receivers, meaning television units, as it could only be broadcast to roughly a 50-mile radius. But that was still a success to them. And we're looking to branch out and get into the professional baseball. And the Dodgers was ideal. And as we've done before, we've talked about the first college basketball game. These were all done in New York because it was a highly populated area. And so you could reach more people in New York than anywhere else at the time as New York was the biggest city at the time. So you broadcast in that location as even though you can only get in a 50 mile radius, you would get more people in that radius than anywhere else in the country. They had a great location to transmit and to reach more people as they could transmit from the top of the Empire State Building, the tallest building at the time. And then at the time, this was a small faction of the NBC brand as it was mainly focused on radio at the time. And so they only had a small unit on hand. So they had a mobile truck, two cameras. They placed one down the third baseline so they could capture all the infield throws and another one placed above home plate so they could view every pitch clearly. Now at this time, they didn't have our TV commentators and they selected Walter Red Barber as the commentator for that time. As he had Had a unique experience as four years previously, he had done the play-by-play for the Cincinnati Reds. And now, this season, he was doing the play-by-play for the Dodgers. So he knew each team very well. And on top of this, he had to learn a new skill. This was the first time he called a television game as well. And he didn't have monitors like they do today. He had to look at each camera and see which one had a light on top to know which view the people were getting. So he knew which commentary to provide. And the game was broadcast just across New York and was a key proponent of the RCA Pavilion at the New York World's Fair that was happening at the same time. And Major League Baseball claims that 3,000 people actually viewed the game. Now, others state only about 400 viewers, but Major League Baseball is including this RCA Pavilion in its numbers as it's different than just how many total receivers it had. It was 400 receivers. And there was more people than just the receivers watching. Now, overall, the broadcast was a success as people were excited to see this new thing, the people that were able to see it. And remember, baseball at the time was really a middle class, working class pastime. People that were working in factories, worked with their hands, doing hard work, enjoyed going to a game. You were able to afford going to a game. That's what drew a lot of people to baseball. Everyone could go see it. But those people didn't have televisions, so it didn't connect to its audience yet, only because television hadn't gotten to where it was affordable just yet. But it was a great start, and it was a good game. There was 33,000 fans in attendance in the first game. And in the first game, the Dodgers took a two-run lead early in the second inning and held it until the eighth inning when the Reds went on a streak and scored five runs. winning that first game 5-2. And shortly after, in the second game, the Dodgers took control, scoring six runs in the first three innings. And the Reds were not able to keep up. And the Dodgers split the doubleheader, winning 6-1. Now, even though these were two of the best teams in the league, and people loved to watch it, it didn't mean there wasn't criticism of with the broadcast. As it was successful for NBC as they got viewers, just as we know now, just getting viewers doesn't mean you had a good product. As many movies can be great box office hits, but not be a great movie. It's about what it represents. As people criticized the picture as they couldn't see the ball, which makes sense at the time, it was black and white and very grainy because it was a new technology. And you could barely see the ball. And the players looked like flies. You couldn't make out who each player was. And sometimes you couldn't even tell by just watching whether that was the Reds hitting or if it was the Dodgers. As it was only two cameras that didn't move. They just went from one camera to the other. And it was very limited what you could actually do. But it was only the start. As later in the year, they would have their first NFL game. And what's funny is, at the time, baseball owners really didn't like the concept of television. They thought it would take away from their stadium attendance as fans would rather watch the game at home. That is the case now, but that wasn't the case back then as baseball fandom continued to grow and stadium attendance stayed strong even while the growth of baseball continued. It wasn't until more recently in the 2000s that attendance had actually dwindled, maybe due to the baseball broadcast being as good as it has gotten today, but also because fandom has died down. But because they have the television rights that they have, they were able to make more money than they could ever have made from ticket sales. And it helped boost the sport more than it had ever gone before. Now the sport is worldwide and there's great leagues in other countries. And we continue to see great players come from Japan and the Dominican Republic and all over the world continue to grow the sport. And that's all because television stepped out there and was able to grow the sport more than ever. This one event broke down the barrier to television, and by 1951, baseball would be regularly televised, and baseball fandom would grow across the world. I want to thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please leave us a rating and review wherever you're listening, and let us know a topic you would like us to cover, and we'll get that done for you. Just leave us the topic, and your name, and we'll get an episode done just for you. And come back tomorrow for more daily sports history. And the answer to today's trivia question, which was, how many people did Major League Baseball say watched that very first baseball game? And the answer is 3,000, due largely in part to the New York World's Fair and RCA Pavilion. Thank you.