Sports on Television

Report Outline
TV Network Competition in Football
Trend Toward TV Control Ira Baseball
Limited Audiences for Most Secondary Sports
Effects of TV on Sports Attendance
Special Focus

Autumn is a golden season for the sports addict; he can satisfy his cravings without leaving the living room. A flick of the television dial summons up a rich assortment of sporting events, ranging from baseball to billiards. In recent weeks, the television networks have supplied live coverage of the World Series, the Davis Cup Challenge Round, and (via communications satellite) portions of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. One collegiate and at least two professional football games are standard weekend fare on the home screen in the autumn months.

Winter brings no interruption. On one weekend last February, a television viewer in the New York metropolitan area could have watched, with some overlapping, 22 different sports programs.

Saturday, Feb. 8, featured two basketball games, an ice hockey contest, two golf programs, two hours of film of the Winter Olympics, a rodeo, professional wrestling, skiing, the roller derby, power boat racing, billiards, horse racing and a motorcycling championship.