It seems like nowadays everyone sees all the major highlights of the major sports thanks to all the countless television channels and websites dedicated to sports.
Besides newspapers and box scores, how were people informed of crazy or odd occurrences of a match? What about routine highlights? Would people only see local sports highlights or national highlights?
I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I was born in 1993 and have always wondered how sports information was reported en masse before the internet and dedicated sports channels.
I watch a lot of MLB Network, which often shows clips from the 70s, and I wonder if most people would knew that Joe Whoever hit a game winning home run during some (relatively meaningless) game in August, or if only the local people of the team would know.
Thanks!
Popular sports were broadcast on the radio, and newspaper reports would be published of major events, even in towns a long way from where they were played. The sports pages of all major city papers for pretty much the whole 20th century carried results of hockey, baseball (and as they became more popular, football and basketball). This is in addition to results of horse racing and Jai Alai (because people gambled on them). Big events like the America's Cup for instance and some major international events would also be covered. Newsreels also showed highlights of games sometimes.
People kept up in different ways too: the 1927 the Dempsey-Tunney fight (held in Chicago) it was actually reenacted for spectators in New York. Actors played the fighters and created what was happening based on information from the radio. This was while the fight was going on!
For Baseball, beginning in the late 70s there was a weekly show shown nationwide via syndication called This Week In Baseball. It was a half-hour show of hightlights, player interviews, and the like.
For all intents and purposes, if you've ever seen ESPN's Sportscenter, you've seen the influence of TWIB.