ABSTRACT
The introduction and intersection of television producers and controllers into the field of sport, especially after 1955, were the most dramatic shift in terrain since the genesis of the field in the late nineteenth century. For the first time in sport's existence, spectator sports were not played for the enjoyment of those taking part, nor performed for the crowds in stadiums. First and foremost, professional sports were now predominantly about securing and sustaining television audiences. The Viewsport/Pay-TV combination radically altered the terrain of the media field and the sporting field. After experiments in the 1965/66 season, for the 1967–68 season the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Independent Television (ITV) and Viewsport all competed with one another for live Football League broadcasting rights. The chapter concludes by analysing the ways in which sport became an entertaining spectacle in the 1980s, and how it has moved closer to a position historically occupied by wrestling.
