Play-by-Play: Radio, Television, and Big-Time College Sport / Edition 1

by Ronald A. Smith

Overview

Noted sports historian writes on the relationship of the media to college athletics.

Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2003 by Choice Magazine

The phenomenal popularity of college athletics owes as much to media coverage of games as it does to drum-beating alumni and frantic undergraduates. Play-by-play broadcasts of big college games began in the 1920s via radio, a medium that left much to the listener's imagination and stoked interest in college football. After World War II, the rise of television brought with it network-NCAA deals that reeked of money and fostered bitter jealousies between have and have-not institutions. In Play-by-Play: Radio, Television, and Big-Time College Sport noted author and sports insider Ronald A. Smith examines the troubled relationship between higher education and the broadcasting industry, the effects of TV revenue on college athletics (notably football), and the odds of achieving meaningful reform.

Beginning with the early days of radio, Smith describes the first bowl game broadcasts, the media image of Notre Dame and coach Knute Rockne, and the threat broadcasting seemed to pose to college football attendance. He explores the beginnings of television, the growth of networks, the NCAA decision to control football telecasts, the place of advertising, the role of TV announcers, and the threat of NCAA "Robin Hoods" and the College Football Association to NCAA television control. Taking readers behind the scenes, he explains the culture of the college athletic department and reveals the many ways in which broadcasting dollars make friends in the right places. Play-by-Play is an eye-opening look at the political infighting invariably produced by the deadly combination of university administrators, athletic czars, and huge revenue.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801866869
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.01(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ronald A. Smith is a professor emeritus at Penn State University and has held the position of Secretary-Treasurer of the North American Society for Sport History since 1972. His many books include Big-Time Football at Harvard, 1905; Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics; and Saga of American Sport.

Table of Contents

Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Media and Early College Sport
2 Marconi, the Wireless, and Early Sports Broadcasting
3 The Broadcasters
4 Graham McNamee and Ted Husing Dominate the Airwaves
5 The Radio Threat to College
6 In the Image of Rockne: Notre Dame and Radio Policy
7 Radio Goes "Bowling": The Rose Bowl Leads the Way
8 Sport and the New Medium of Television
9 Networks, Coaxial Cable, Commercialism, and Concern
10 Notre Dame Chooses Commercial TV
11 Penn Challenges the NCAA and the Ivy League
12 The NCAA Experimental Year and Reactions
13 Networks: The Du Mont Challenge
14 Regional Conferences Challenge a National Policy
15 TV and the Threat of Professional Football
16 Roone Arledge and the Influence of ABC-TV
17 Advertising, Image versus Money, and the Beer Hall Incident
18 The Television Announcer's Role in Football Promotion
19 The Cable Television Dilemma: More May Be Less
20 TV Money, Robin Hood, and the Birth of the NCAA
21 TV Property Rights and a CFA Challenge to the NCAA
22 Oklahoma and Georgia Carry the TV Ball for the CFA Team
23 TV, Home Rule Anarchy, and Conference Realignments
24 Basketball: From Madison Square Garden to a Televised Final Four
25 TV's Unfinished Business: The Division I-A Football Championship

Appendix: Radio, TV, and Big-Time College
Sport: A Timeline
Notes
Bibliographical Essay
Index

What People are Saying About This

John R. Thelin

Many authors have written celebrations—or diatribes—about the commercialism of college sports. Smith is more interesting and effective because he evades the polemics and settles for reconstructing and interpreting a fascinating tale. The episodes and details, the names and places—these are hard to research, and Smith does it. As a result, his story jumps out in its appeal and interpretation.

— John R. Thelin, University of Kentucky

From the Publisher

Many authors have written celebrations—or diatribes—about the commercialism of college sports. Smith is more interesting and effective because he evades the polemics and settles for reconstructing and interpreting a fascinating tale. The episodes and details, the names and places—these are hard to research, and Smith does it. As a result, his story jumps out in its appeal and interpretation.
—John R. Thelin, University of Kentucky

Editorial Reviews

Very well researched and thorough . . . A welcome feature is a detailed, exhaustive time line of the intersecting strands of college sports and electronic media over the years. An additional bonus that closes the book is its helpful bibliographic essay, which functions as a literature review covering archives, general works, legal issues, and periodic literature and should be a boon for further research.
—Library Journal

In addition to its obvious appeal to sports fans, Play by Play provides an interesting examination of how society deals with new innovations and their changes over time, the conditions under which cartels attempt to organize, and the factors in their success or failure.
—Stanley L. Engerman, Journal of Economic History

Based on a nearly exhaustive investigation into the primary sources, including some fifty archives, . . . Smith's research makes abundantly clear that the presidents and athletic departments of America's leading education institutions have consistently tried to use the media—newspaper, radio, and television—for their own gain.
—Randy Roberts, Journal of American History

Smith's book provides a mother lode of information for those interested in the merger of big-time sports with big-time media . . . Smith has clearly combined a fan's interest with a scholar's devotion in researching his subject.
—Thomas Alan Holmes, Aethlon

No one knows more than Ronald A. Smith about the history of intercollegiate sports in the United States . . . [Play-by-Play] offers an extraordinarily detailed historical examination of the relationship among top-flight college sports (principally football), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and television.
—Warren Goldstein, American Historical Review

A well-researched, historical analysis . . . Provides an often troubling account of the corruptive power of money, broken promises, misguided priorities, crushed dreams and academic compromises. Not exactly uplifting stuff, but required reading for anyone who wants to gain a greater understanding of why it's too often true that concerns about the records of a university's football and basketball teams seem more important than the quality of a school's faculty or the educating of its students.
—K. Tim Wulfemeyer, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator

From the Publisher

A well-researched, historical analysis . . . Provides an often troubling account of the corruptive power of money, broken promises, misguided priorities, crushed dreams and academic compromises. Not exactly uplifting stuff, but required reading for anyone who wants to gain a greater understanding of why it's too often true that concerns about the records of a university's football and basketball teams seem more important than the quality of a school's faculty or the educating of its students.

Journalism and Mass Communication Educator - K. Tim Wulfemeyer

Based on a nearly exhaustive investigation into the primary sources, including some fifty archives, . . . Smith's research makes abundantly clear that the presidents and athletic departments of America's leading education institutions have consistently tried to use the media—newspaper, radio, and television—for their own gain.

Journal of American History - Randy Roberts

In addition to its obvious appeal to sports fans, Play by Play provides an interesting examination of how society deals with new innovations and their changes over time, the conditions under which cartels attempt to organize, and the factors in their success or failure.

Journal of Economic History - Stanley L. Engerman

Smith's book provides a mother lode of information for those interested in the merger of big-time sports with big-time media . . . Smith has clearly combined a fan's interest with a scholar's devotion in researching his subject.

Aethlon - Thomas Alan Holmes

No one knows more than Ronald A. Smith about the history of intercollegiate sports in the United States . . . [Play-by-Play] offers an extraordinarily detailed historical examination of the relationship among top-flight college sports (principally football), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and television.

American Historical Review - Warren Goldstein