3:46 - 4:04/ Good Lord, Jim Simpson goes back THAT far? If I'm not mistaken, that dedication he was referring to was for WRC-TV, the D.C. affiliate for NBC. That footage features the oldest color videotape footage of a sitting President!❤
In those days,ESPN was on from 6 PM -6AM. There was an on screen scroll the rest of time,telling of upcoming programs.I have a few minutes of it on VHS.
I remember when I was a kid, and we first got cable in the early 80’s, I believe a business channel use to rent time on ESPN during week day mornings.back than ESPN had stiff competition from the USA network. who had contracts with MLB, , NBA and NHL. plus a lot of the major college leagues.
Jim Simpson was probably the most well-known announcer that ESPN had at the very start. Because of his years at NBC being the number two announcer on AFL/AFC games behind Curt Gowdy. And also being the number two announcer on MLB broadcasts of the game of the week every Saturday.
@@rockvilleraven Chet Simmons knew that for ESPN to have credibility early on-they needed a "voice"-Simpson, through his stellar career at NBC, was that voice
I was a sophomore in high school when ESPN hit the air. Fortunately, we had cable and got the channel either on its first day or very soon after that. It was a big deal for ESPN to lure Jim Simpson away from NBC. Originally, the main reasons for me to watch ESPN were SportsCenter and live college basketball telecasts. ESPN couldn’t show live college football in the regular season until 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA’s strict limitations on live football telecasts violated the antitrust laws. All of ESPN’s early college football telecasts in the regular season were on tape delay. ESPN showed bowl games from its first year, but they were the lower-echelon games for many years. The NCAA has never regulated regular season college basketball telecasts, so ESPN was able to show those games live at the very beginning, and Dick Vitale joined them in December 1979, I believe.
Cable was in it's infancy in '79 remember it well My Sonics Just won the NBA Title against the Washington Bullets a year after They lost to the same Bullets.Sonics owner Sam Shullman decided to start the "Sonics Super channel" to capitalize in our success Didn't go well for him but ESPN and Cable was here to stay Good times.
@@kevins90sc In DC/Baltimore there was Home Team Sports with Orioles, Bullets and Caps. Later Comcast purchased it and it became Comcast Sports Net, then later NBC Sports Washington, Wizards, Caps, Mystics and Monumental Sports CEO Ted Leonsis bought it and now it’s Monumental Sports Network. When baseball returned to DC, then Orioles owner Peter Angelos started Mid Atlantic Sports Network, which shows the Os and Nats and it’s a financial kickback for the Nationals invading their territory, although that might change in the offseason now that David Rubenstein bought the Orioles from the Angelos family.
I was 10 when ESPN first appeared. I used to watch it all the time to catch up on the scores during football season. Back when ESPN was an all sports chanel, that only talked about sports.
Back when ESPN actually showed smaller college game--since that was all they could get. Now, they're snobs and act like that no longer exists. Meanwhile, they're too busy ridiculously overpaying gasbags like Screamin' A Smith, as if he adds anything to a broadcast except verbal diarrhea.
ESPN as it was meant the be… now it’s all dazzle and baffle w/ BS and on-air showmanship, vs the old ABC WWS, CBS NFL and NBC MLBB straight forward reporting and factual sport journalism, IMHO
Wow! This is rare ESPN material. The ESPN promo music you hear at 8:33 was also used as the closing theme to a SportsCenter broadcast from around 1980-81. I know this, because I remember seeing that broadcast on ESPN Classic years ago when they featured old SportsCenter broadcasts to honor ESPN's anniversary.
In December 1986, I was a junior in high school when ESPN came into town for a golf tournament. I worked the tournament for a week. I tested Triax cable, ran comms across the golf course, helped build an announce booth, I took out the trash, I went to the grocery store, ran a shotgun mic on the 9th green, and I got Calvin Peete a cup of water. They had two remote trucks at the event and they are probably the ones in this video. By the time I was around them, they had some upgrades with an Abekas A-42 still store. Character generators were two Chyron 4100 era machines. Sadly, no Vidifont to be seen. A great experience to be there.
Great comparison! I used to watch both of those stations religiously. ESPN had so much promise, haven't watched it in years, instead of pushing sports, it's pushing its woke agenda.
ESPN worthless? What, people don't like sports, even if they get some woke & politics thrown in the mix? MTV I understand. The concept of running music videos died out 30+ years ago.
Remember as for Programming in the early day's of ESPN i would come Home from work and turn on ESPN they had POLO [horses] on ....well the Sports addict i was ...Learned what a "Chucker" was that night....[other sports have periods or Quarters] Polo has Chuckers....
ESPN was the first cable channel we got in upstate NY in the early 80s. It didn’t require a cable box. A few months later we got the box and then we had MTV, CNN, etc. Back then, ESPN did not have any professional sports. They showed rodeo, minor league baseball, and Australian football. I still watched it like 12 hours a day. There was a humor about covering sports from day 1. They made even those obscure sports entertaining.
Jim Simpson/Tony Kubek combo was one of my first introductions to the NBC Baseball Game of the Week on Saturday afternoons when the Vin/Joe duo wasn't on tap.
Actually, and especially in 1979 you did have cable in quite a few areas, including in Manhattan in New York (though the other boroughs did not get cable until the late 1980's).
Back when ESPN was a good sports channel. Now it's a bade circus on drugs. Sports Center sucks, no more NFL Prime Time like the 80s and 90s. collegeGamday is 100% on drugs. GameDay is like you went to a fun party and you drank to much then you got sober and realize I am at a bad party that is alt of control.
I always loved the music soundtrack they used back in the day wish I could find a copy of it I was 13 years old when ESPN launched I had a tape recorder back in the recorded the music soundtrack but I can't find the tapes anymore.
ESPN is crap now. The announcers are annoying, they split the screen and show ads during the action and they mic up the players for insufferable commentary. It’s run by people who feel they need to distract you from the game which they must find boring.
A great concept that has been ruined by loudmouths and political correctness. And if you remember, when they first started they didn’t even have the big professional sports leagues. They had AWA Wrestling and assorted third tier sports. I think the first big sport they got was the NHL, which they snatched from USA Network, of all places.
I would love to see a pitch reel for TNN. I’ve heard it was a really fun and informative video. Can you please upload a copy? In the reel, Austin City Limits producer Terry Lickona discusses the inception of TNN and how the country music network came to be. It would be great to see how they pitched the network back in 1983.👍
And for about 35-40 years they did what they were supposed to cover sports with great personalities that added to the coverage. I guess all good things come to an end. I remember in the 80's when there were few sports talk shows, the one I remember was Up Close with Roy Firestone, they used to televise Australian rules football during the afternoon on weekdays before they started getting their contracts with MLB and NFL.
At 3:50 Mr. Simpson refers to brand new TV station in DC where then Pres. Eisenhower toured the control room and mentioned the war room remarks , That was actually WRC in 1958 when the first color tape broadcast began , Eisenhower took a tour of the area downstairs and then came upstairs to make the public dedication speech . The video is on You Tube with David Brinkley narrating .
I loved the Australian Rules Football games, the Canadian Football League and the very first indoor arena football games. ESPN exposed college baseball and college lacrosse to a wider American audience. It helped the original Big East college basketball conference to grow and prosper. And Chris Berman gave to all of us those wonderful nicknames of so many Major League Baseball players. It is a tragic, crying shame that ESPN has degenerated into a bunch of woke, progressive, loud mouthed , left wing punks who love to hear themselves speak and yell and scream and who are legends in tbeir own minds.
RIP James Shores Simpson ( Born on December 20, 1927 - Died on January 13, 2016) Great presenter!
also bob ley he drowned i think trying to save someone
i take that back i just found out bob ley is still alive.
i'm sorry it was tom mess who drowned.
@danielcorreard3746 God Bless him
@@danielcorreard3746Tom Mees
3:46 - 4:04/ Good Lord, Jim Simpson goes back THAT far? If I'm not mistaken, that dedication he was referring to was for WRC-TV, the D.C. affiliate for NBC. That footage features the oldest color videotape footage of a sitting President!❤
Truck guys still pull cable unless there is a fiber patch
Form just a sports network to Elite, Socialist, Programing, Network.
As a 14 year old kid who LOVED sports. When ESPN launched I thought I died and went to heaven. Lou Palmer, Lee Leonard, Jim Simpson and 24/7 sports.
I remember those days of early ESPN programming: CFL, Australian Rules Football, hockey, Tennis Davis Cup, etc.
@@hangarby10 Almost any sport they could get cheap in those early days.
I was 19> I remember getting stoned and watching all those crazy international sports. It was a glorious time.
Ha !!! And commercials for Barrons
Mickey Mouse has destroyed the once great ESPN by drifting away from sports.
Well said.
If Mickey liked your politics you would call him a patriot.
Not really. Its just that the commentary sucks & its oversaturated.
In those days,ESPN was on from 6 PM -6AM.
There was an on screen scroll the rest of time,telling of upcoming programs.I have a few minutes of it on VHS.
Subí los vídeos de VHS así quedé algún registro
I remember when I was a kid, and we first got cable in the early 80’s, I believe a business channel use to rent time on ESPN during week day mornings.back than ESPN had stiff competition from the USA network. who had contracts with MLB, , NBA and NHL. plus a lot of the major college leagues.
Jim Simpson was probably the most well-known announcer that ESPN had at the very start. Because of his years at NBC being the number two announcer on AFL/AFC games behind Curt Gowdy. And also being the number two announcer on MLB broadcasts of the game of the week every Saturday.
He left NBC and WRC 4 in Washington, DC because he wanted to be a pioneer with ESPN.
@@rockvilleraven Chet Simmons knew that for ESPN to have credibility early on-they needed a "voice"-Simpson, through his stellar career at NBC, was that voice
Amazing. Between this and MTV, it changed the world during that era.
Then the following year CNN started. Having cable tv was such the 'in' thing.
I miss championship log rolling
Sometimes... that was the highlight of the week...lol 😂😂😂😂
Wow! ESPN was actually pretty cool at one time.
Yep. You couldn't get any cooler than Chris Berman.
Now??? Not so much.
Simpson did a great job on the usfl games he did. Him and Paul McGuire. Great memories.
@@TheVikings1976 He later did play by play on TV for the Baltimore Orioles for one year.
I was a sophomore in high school when ESPN hit the air. Fortunately, we had cable and got the channel either on its first day or very soon after that. It was a big deal for ESPN to lure Jim Simpson away from NBC. Originally, the main reasons for me to watch ESPN were SportsCenter and live college basketball telecasts. ESPN couldn’t show live college football in the regular season until 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA’s strict limitations on live football telecasts violated the antitrust laws. All of ESPN’s early college football telecasts in the regular season were on tape delay. ESPN showed bowl games from its first year, but they were the lower-echelon games for many years. The NCAA has never regulated regular season college basketball telecasts, so ESPN was able to show those games live at the very beginning, and Dick Vitale joined them in December 1979, I believe.
I was 9 in 1979 !!!
They actually televised the NCAA Cross Country Championship for a couple of years.
Jim Simpson. Wow, hadn’t thought of him in years. He was good.
The brilliance of Jim Simpson on full display here.
Cable was in it's infancy in '79 remember it well My Sonics Just won the NBA Title against the Washington Bullets a year after They lost to the same Bullets.Sonics owner Sam Shullman decided to start the "Sonics Super channel" to capitalize in our success Didn't go well for him but ESPN and Cable was here to stay Good times.
@@kevins90sc In DC/Baltimore there was Home Team Sports with Orioles, Bullets and Caps. Later Comcast purchased it and it became Comcast Sports Net, then later NBC Sports Washington, Wizards, Caps, Mystics and Monumental Sports CEO Ted Leonsis bought it and now it’s Monumental Sports Network. When baseball returned to DC, then Orioles owner Peter Angelos started Mid Atlantic Sports Network, which shows the Os and Nats and it’s a financial kickback for the Nationals invading their territory, although that might change in the offseason now that David Rubenstein bought the Orioles from the Angelos family.
Back when i fed exed them stories and if aired they paid me $100
I was 10 when ESPN first appeared. I used to watch it all the time to catch up on the scores during football season. Back when ESPN was an all sports chanel, that only talked about sports.
I was 9 in 1979 !!!
Back when ESPN actually showed smaller college game--since that was all they could get. Now, they're snobs and act like that no longer exists. Meanwhile, they're too busy ridiculously overpaying gasbags like Screamin' A Smith, as if he adds anything to a broadcast except verbal diarrhea.
ESPN as it was meant the be… now it’s all dazzle and baffle w/ BS and on-air showmanship, vs the old ABC WWS, CBS NFL and NBC MLBB straight forward reporting and factual sport journalism, IMHO
Jim Simpson was a great announcer.
Later did Baltimore Orioles TV play by play for a year.
My memory of the beginning of espn... they had a show called "Celebrity Pinball"
Wow! This is rare ESPN material. The ESPN promo music you hear at 8:33 was also used as the closing theme to a SportsCenter broadcast from around 1980-81. I know this, because I remember seeing that broadcast on ESPN Classic years ago when they featured old SportsCenter broadcasts to honor ESPN's anniversary.
WOW. This is ancient technology now but back then it was state of the art. This is an awesome look back. It's like unlocking a time capsule.
When ESPN first started was it owned by Capital cities/ABC?😊😮
No. Getty Oil as I remember owned it originally.
Wow!!!! I didn’t know that ESPN came out in 1979! I was 10 years old.
In December 1986, I was a junior in high school when ESPN came into town for a golf tournament. I worked the tournament for a week. I tested Triax cable, ran comms across the golf course, helped build an announce booth, I took out the trash, I went to the grocery store, ran a shotgun mic on the 9th green, and I got Calvin Peete a cup of water. They had two remote trucks at the event and they are probably the ones in this video. By the time I was around them, they had some upgrades with an Abekas A-42 still store. Character generators were two Chyron 4100 era machines. Sadly, no Vidifont to be seen. A great experience to be there.
When I watch espn from time to time, sports is still on espn. Unless you’re talking about the sport talk shows.
I didn't see ESPN until a few years later, but it seems so long ago.
Back when men were men, and not “bros”.
Sadly you've never been either.
@@davidmitchell6873 You must be a gay.
Now ESPN is virtually worthless! Same as MTV.
Great comparison! I used to watch both of those stations religiously. ESPN had so much promise, haven't watched it in years, instead of pushing sports, it's pushing its woke agenda.
ESPN worthless? What, people don't like sports, even if they get some woke & politics thrown in the mix? MTV I understand. The concept of running music videos died out 30+ years ago.
@@jamesanthony5681MTV Classic
It's not worthless...YOU'RE JUST SOFT!!
Oh man I miss those days
Remember as for Programming in the early day's of ESPN i would come Home from work and turn on ESPN they had POLO [horses] on ....well the Sports addict i was ...Learned what a "Chucker" was that night....[other sports have periods or Quarters] Polo has Chuckers....
ESPN was the first cable channel we got in upstate NY in the early 80s. It didn’t require a cable box. A few months later we got the box and then we had MTV, CNN, etc. Back then, ESPN did not have any professional sports. They showed rodeo, minor league baseball, and Australian football. I still watched it like 12 hours a day. There was a humor about covering sports from day 1. They made even those obscure sports entertaining.
Jim Simpson/Tony Kubek combo was one of my first introductions to the NBC Baseball Game of the Week on Saturday afternoons when the Vin/Joe duo wasn't on tap.
I had just finished high school when ESPN was 25.
Looking forward to ESPN's last days on air.
That’s not happening anytime soon.
Never gonna happen. The monopoly is way too strong.
🤣🤣
I remember they were knocking on doors selling cable tv at the time.
Swamp Buggy races
Back before it was about politics
You read my mind👍
You wouldn't care if it was your politics they liked in fact you would call them patriots.
I miss Aussie Rules Football games to fill in time on their schedule in the early days.
Ah, you beat me to it.
P.S. It was more probably what they could afford.
Actually, and especially in 1979 you did have cable in quite a few areas, including in Manhattan in New York (though the other boroughs did not get cable until the late 1980's).
Any curling?
“And now we bring you to billings,Montana for 2 guys throwing a ball back and forth
That's pretty much what ESPN was in the first seven or eight years.
Was this when TBS was on Briarcliff Rd or when it was in the Omni?
loved Jim Simpson growing up
Back when ESPN was a good sports channel. Now it's a bade circus on drugs. Sports Center sucks, no more NFL Prime Time like the 80s and 90s. collegeGamday is 100% on drugs. GameDay is like you went to a fun party and you drank to much then you got sober and realize I am at a bad party that is alt of control.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra! The surest way of conveying, "This is big!"
I always loved the music soundtrack they used back in the day wish I could find a copy of it I was 13 years old when ESPN launched I had a tape recorder back in the recorded the music soundtrack but I can't find the tapes anymore.
ESPN is crap now. The announcers are annoying, they split the screen and show ads during the action and they mic up the players for insufferable commentary. It’s run by people who feel they need to distract you from the game which they must find boring.
A lot of people are excited about ESPN !!
A great concept that has been ruined by loudmouths and political correctness. And if you remember, when they first started they didn’t even have the big professional sports leagues. They had AWA Wrestling and assorted third tier sports. I think the first big sport they got was the NHL, which they snatched from USA Network, of all places.
I would love to see a pitch reel for TNN. I’ve heard it was a really fun and informative video. Can you please upload a copy? In the reel, Austin City Limits producer Terry Lickona discusses the inception of TNN and how the country music network came to be. It would be great to see how they pitched the network back in 1983.👍
This seems more like a trade pitch for cable companies than end user content, maybe both
A great network at the start but they've turned it into a political station
You're just mad they don't like your politics. Maybe Jesse Waters can read you the baseball scores.
@@davidmitchell6873 Leave your Moms basement sometime...There a whole world of normal people out there...Not just libtards...
MTV, CNN, and ESPN. They used to be great.
6:33 Shout out to Chris Berman, who is still at ESPN after all these years.
"Happiness is seeing Bristol in your rear-view mirror" true then and now.
Other than the advancements in technology, a lot of it is the same now as it was back then.
A chyron and vidifont in one room? That’s funny
Woke central
Good old days
Total sports network? 😂
Now its owned by Disney
ESPN,.....WAS good.
I sure do miss the biased political commenting.
You mean like fox news?
A brilliant concept. I first recall seeing ESPN in 1983 with their USFL coverage. Thanks for sharing this.
Watching this grand nostalgic moment in history makes me weep...my gosh my whole family is crying. Thank you. 'Merica
8:18
And for about 35-40 years they did what they were supposed to cover sports with great personalities that added to the coverage. I guess all good things come to an end. I remember in the 80's when there were few sports talk shows, the one I remember was Up Close with Roy Firestone, they used to televise Australian rules football during the afternoon on weekdays before they started getting their contracts with MLB and NFL.
At 3:50 Mr. Simpson refers to brand new TV station in DC where then Pres. Eisenhower toured the control room and mentioned the war room remarks , That was actually WRC in 1958 when the first color tape broadcast began , Eisenhower took a tour of the area downstairs and then came upstairs to make the public dedication speech . The video is on You Tube with David Brinkley narrating .
ESPN Is still going strong after almost 45 years!
They’re certainly going, strong is a matter of opinion
@@spmanLOL yep they peaked at least 15 years ago
ESPN is not going strong.
ESPN is not going strong.
Do bad they suck now
Keith Olbermann!!
The best.
I loved the Australian Rules Football games, the Canadian Football League and the very first indoor arena football games. ESPN exposed college baseball and college lacrosse to a wider American audience. It helped the original Big East college basketball conference to grow and prosper. And Chris Berman gave to all of us those wonderful nicknames of so many Major League Baseball players. It is a tragic, crying shame that ESPN has degenerated into a bunch of woke, progressive, loud mouthed , left wing punks who love to hear themselves speak and yell and scream and who are legends in tbeir own minds.
Racquetball championship
Lou Palmer. A great man.
So why not SPN? Because the two-bit tinhorn Satellite Programming Network came first, that's why.