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.

About the Author

Travis Vogan is Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Department of American Studies at the University of Iowa. He is the author of ESPN: The Making of a Sports Media Empire.

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

Reviews

"This is a book that has much to commend it and little to criticize. It is built on meticulous research and a strong overall conception of the significance of the subject. For the specialist in history or media it is essential."
— New York Journal of Books

"Vogan employs his impressive historical and archival research skills to develop an important cultural analysis of American sports media. Vogan’s research helps fill large holes not only in the area of sports studies but also within the broader field of media studies."
— Media Industries Journal

"Travis Vogan's cultural history of ABC Sports offers a compelling analysis of America's love affair with sports. It provides an inside look at how that love was cultivated through sport's marriage to television on an altar where ABC's constant telling of the 'thrill of victory and agony of defeat' taught an entire culture how to think about sporting achievement. This is essential reading for any fan or student of contemporary sport."—Lawrence Wenner, editor-in-chief of Communication & Sport

"Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell, Wide World of Sports and Monday Night Football, the tragedy at Munich and the emptiness of TrashSports are all part of the genius of Roone Arledge and his empire at ABC Sports. Arledge taught a generation of viewers how to watch sports, how to love them, and how to hate them. Travis Vogan's deep look into the world Arledge created suggests the meaning and legacy of televised sports. This is a book for anyone who cares about sports and worries about the future of the beast."—Randy Roberts, coauthor of A Season in the Sun: The Rise of Mickey Mantle

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews