Classic Sports events? (1 Viewer)

[bmasters9]

They are more concerned with trying to preserve the image of NFL Films than seeing the game's TV history preserved and that to me is pathetic.

Especially when that history has involved some of the greatest of the NFL's broadcasters, such as Pat Summerall, John Madden, Tom Brookshier, Ray Scott, Curt Gowdy, et al.

 

[David_B_K]

I would really like to see all the surviving footage and play by play of the 1958 sudden death NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants.

 

[jknu0526]

I'm sure I am in the extreme minority here but I would love "season sets" of 1970's and 1980's Professional Bowlers Tour telecasts. LOL, I'm serious!

 

[Jack P]

I would really like to see all the surviving footage and play by play of the 1958 sudden death NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants.

All that exists is the radio broadcast and film footage. No telecast material.

 

[Neil Brock]

The only classic sports events I would be willing to watch again, would be:

- old John McEnroe matches when he was throwing tantrums
- Edmonton Oilers games back when they were the "dream team" in the early-mid 1980s (ie. Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, etc ...).

Back in the day, I didn't live anywhere which played regular Oilers games on tv. The few I did watch in those days, I thought were outstanding.


More generally, I found most sports events have almost no rewatch value for me. It doesn't seem as exciting to watch, when the final outcome is already known.

As someone who has collected old sporting events for decades, I will tell you that what I find the most watchable sports to view when you know the result are basketball and tennis. I can enjoy watching great plays, great shots, great points, even if I know the outcome. Honestly, in baseball and football there is such minimal action and once the novelty of seeing a game that's decades old has worn off, they are pretty boring when you know the outcome. Hockey I can watch if its a game with a lot of exciting end to end rushes or a lot of fights. Anyway, that's just my view.

 

[Neil Brock]

All that exists is the radio broadcast and film footage. No telecast material.

Surprising to me that in this day and age, there are still people who haven't the slightest idea as to how few actual telecasts of sporting events from the 50s and 60s still are in existence. Even a lot of the 70s is gone. NBC never saw a tape it didn't want to erase so even classic games like the Sea of Hands and the Immaculate Deception were wiped. The only reason Super Bowl 5 exists is because CBS saved it, not NBC. Laver-Rosewall 1972 WCT Final, greatest tennis match of all-time - gone. Decades of MLB Game of the Week telecasts - gone. Regular season AFL & AFC Football - gone.

 

[Susan Nunes_329977]

It would be great if CBS would release its broadcasts of Secretariat's Triple Crown series on DVD. The broadcasts have long been out on bootleg copies (you can view them on YouTube), but my understanding is CBS is not an outfit that releases its sports material out on DVD.

NBC has all of its coverage of the Breeders' Cup races on DVD starting from the first running back in 1984. Those DVDs are pretty expensive.

 

[Jack P]

I am a fanatical collector of old sports telecasts and radio broadcasts for that matter because the raw history of the event as it happens is priceless to me. Plus, I love listening to old announcers who are long gone especially if they're the ones I grew up with. Consequently, Yankees games from the 70s and early 80s with Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White will get more playing time from me than games from the 60s and before but I still enjoy having them all. Baseball, football, hockey and auto racing in particular (the Indy 500 radio broadcasts of a bygone era are treasures). Are some harder to listen and watch than others? Of course, but I find that a full game broadcast is just as fun to look at again for the ambience of seeing players at earlier stages of their career etc. and trying to get a sense for how people sensed things at the time. That's a more honest way of looking at the history of sports IMO than NFL Films with their glossified hype machine where every play in the game was a spiral pass set in slow-mo seemingly!

And sadly you start running into gaps in sports telecast history before the mid-80s (and even radio for that matter). NFL games are plentiful starting in 77-78 when home tapers REALLY started to do them big time but I find its limiting for MLB regular season earlier than 1985 often. We are still missing the full versions of the final games of the 73 and 74 World Series, while the 72 World Series has just one full game extant (Game 4) and one near-complete game (Game 5). Recently, I found a home recording of the TV audio of most of Game 7 which does not exist in its video format and we have to settle for things like that.

ABC was the better network at preserving sports from the 60s and 70s because Roone Arledge was more conscientious about that kind of thing (plus, ABC had a separate sports division and was not under the control of the news department like at CBS and NBC where the news heads had no regard for the value of saving sports broadcast tapes) but even they aren't perfect. Almost all the "Wide World of Sports" broadcasts exist as do ABC's Olympics coverage from 64-68-72-76 but many of their NBA games from 67-73 are missing and nothing of their 1965 baseball broadcasts.

Bottom line is that you're not going to find as much as you think there should be. And that's the real tragedy.

 

[Neil Brock]

Even their Monday Night Football library has many gaps prior to 1977. Maybe a quarter of the games from 1970-76 were preserved. The only reason that the John Lennon halftime interview survived is due to a collector's recording.

 

[Jack P]

The closed circuit telecasts of the Indianapolis 500 that aired in theaters from 1964-70 have been elusive. Because thy aired in B/W through 1969 ABC didn't use them for their week later delayed highlights broadcast on "Wide World of Sports" (using color film instead) except for 1970 (ABC then began their same day coverage in 1971. Ironically their copy of the 77 Indy 500 with AJ Foyt winning his fourth race is damaged for the first half and collectors have to rely on a poor quality off-air recording for the first half).

Recently I obtained a kinescope of near complete video of the 1966 closed circuit telecast but it was a feed evidently used for foreign broadcast as it had no commentary on it, only natural crowd noise. I synched the radio broadcast to this material and posted the results on YT for the second start of the race (the initial start with an 11 car accident was not available) plus the final 52 laps of the race.

 

[bmasters9]

Plus, I love listening to old announcers who are long gone especially if they're the ones I grew up with.

Which is one reason why that 1985 Chicago Bears 12-game release has incredible nostalgic value to me-- two of the games on it (regular-season at Dallas, and the NFC Championship against the L.A. Rams from Soldier Field) have Pat Summerall and John Madden (Summerall being sadly deceased, but still a marvel then as I grew up with him).

 

[jcroy]

As someone who has collected old sporting events for decades, I will tell you that what I find the most watchable sports to view when you know the result are basketball and tennis. I can enjoy watching great plays, great shots, great points, even if I know the outcome. Honestly, in baseball and football there is such minimal action and once the novelty of seeing a game that's decades old has worn off, they are pretty boring when you know the outcome. Hockey I can watch if its a game with a lot of exciting end to end rushes or a lot of fights. Anyway, that's just my view.

More generally, I haven't been able to figure out (yet) what has a lot of rewatch value for me, other than by "trial and error".

So far I haven't found any sports events which I wanted to watch a second time.

In the case of movies and tv shows, very very few have had any rewatch value for me. Over the past decade or so, the only stuff that I wanted to watch over and over again, is really horrible stuff like Sharknado.

Stuff which I initially thought I would watch over and over again, frequently turned out to be stuff that I only watched once or twice and had no interest in watching anymore. (Such as many sci-fi/fantasy/superhero/action movies and tv shows).