ABSTRACT
Live sports coverage was transformed in the 1960s with the addition of the Olympics and international events, communications satellites, national television rights contracts, and the first instant replays. Viewers who had grown accustomed to seeing major league baseball and boxing could now watch events on television that they never heard of or only read about. The chapter discusses the founding of the American Football League in 1960 and how its first national television agreement with ABC impacted the long-established NFL and turned games of local interest into national attractions. It details how this new competition spurred Congress to pass legislation that forever changed how Americans consumed live sports on television. And it tells the story of how the instant replays that all sports viewers around the world now take for granted were introduced in 1963 by a young director who conceived of a new technique that would expand the storytelling capabilities of live television.
