Development Of The Sports Broadcasting - 2434 Words

Can you imagine a world in which the only way you could view a sporting event was if you actually attended the game in person? Well, that’s how the world used to be at the turn of the 20th century. The development of the Sports Broadcasting industry and more importantly the rights and regulations associated with the industry set the pace to allow the world of sports media to advance to the point it is at today. The main steps that were taken in this advancement include the development of technology, the development of the Sports Broadcasting Act, and most importantly the progression of case law involving sports broadcasting rights through the reviewing of many cases. In order to be able to grasp how sports broadcasting rights became how†¦show more content†¦This invention caused the sports broadcasting industry to explode, because in May of 1939 Princeton and Columbia’s baseball teams participated in the first nationally televised sporting event. From that poin t on sports were changed forever, opening the doors for professional sports teams to capitalize on the potential revenue that the broadcasting rights of their games could generate. Now that this business was booming, the only issue was that it had no regulation outside of The Sherman Act. The Sherman Act is a piece of legislation that prevents monopolies from forming and it helps competition continue to thrive and be present in all markets. So this lack of regulation caused fans to be very limited in terms of what teams they could watch play. In most cases, fans were only able to watch their home team, which left few options for the fans, left little room for universal growth for the NFL, and most importantly was breaking the antitrust laws. This issue of breaking antitrust laws is the most prominent legal issue involved in broadcasting rights, and it had to be resolved in order to keep the professional leagues from collapsing. Well, this issue came to a head in two court cases that will be discussed in the case law portion of this piece. The result of these cases brought about the birth of the Sports Broadcasting Act in 1961. The Sports Broadcasting Act, â€Å"gave professional sports