Wide World of Sports 50th Anniversary

I agree that it's better than nothing... but there's very little storytelling or anything enterprising on those networks. It's mostly just a world feed with holes cut in it for commercials, and too many commentators doing play x play from broom closets far, far from the venue. WWOS was a whole different caliber. Imo

 

So true, and not a surprise at all. Commerce too often trumps style.

 

Vinko Bogataj, a Slovenia ski jumper. And it wasn't until over 20 years later that he found out that the clip was used every single week for years in the US, and that people always wanted to find out about him. He went to the WWOS 30th-anniversary event and Ali wanted his autograph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agony_of_Defeat

 

What struck me last night watching the series premiere: the casual use of "boy" by field reporter Bob Richards (Olympic pole vault gold medalist) interviewing black and Latino athletes; defunct events like the shuttle hurdles (run on the infield at Franklin Field on rainy day) and the 4x200 relay (staggered start on a straightaway), and some of the schools involved (Hastings? Maryland State? North Carolina College? Abilene Christian?).

 

Didn't Wide World of Sports have the North American Soccer League's Soccer Bowl on a time or two? And the downhill skiing from Kitzbuhl, Austria, was an annual highlight. CBS had a similar Saturday afternoon show for a while, but it had mostly boxing (albeit darn good boxing, a lot of Boom Boom Mancini). NBC had a version with Jack Buck as the host, but it didn't last long.

 

Maryland State was what is now Maryland-Eastern Shore.

North Carolina College is now North Carolina Central.

 

Abilene Christian is still Abilene Christian. The only Hastings I'm familiar with is a chain of video/bookstores.

 

Hastings, Nebraska.

 

CBS Sports Spectacular actually predates Wide World, and the title is still used. NBC had NBC Sports In Action for a couple of years in the 1960s, and then brought it back as Grandstand in the 1970s, soon switching the title to SportsWorld.

 

I guess that's what CBS calls its weekend sports programming in between the college basketball and football seasons when it doesn't have golf. Interesting that it had the last winning of the Triple Crown

 

I liked WWOS as much as the next guy, but on some level this is looking back with rose-colored glasses.

I became a huge F1 fan in the 70s. I was nine years old. Back then there were two races televised in the US -- the USGP and Monaco.

WWOS would show Monaco, weeks after the actual race. It consisted of Jackie Stewart talking about the race, followed by the start and maybe the first two laps. Then they'd go to commercial, and on to bull riding. A half hour later they'd show a couple of laps midway through the race, go to commercial, and cut to some equestrian event. A half hour later they'd show the last lap.

WWOS was nice for it's time, because I'd rather see 5 laps at Monaco instead of nothing at all, which was the choice back then. The options are better now by a factor of 100.

 

It was a few more than five laps, but not many more. I remember one year part of the race was on videotape and part of it was on film. I never could figure out if ABC lost the film in transit back to New York or lost a reel of tape and had to scramble for newsfilm instead.

And almost every event on Wide World was chopped up. That was the format, often even when something was live. You can find a 1970 USAC race from Phoenix where, 20-some laps in, Jim McKay cues Keith Jackson in Florida for a horse race (which isn't on the posting).