Throwback Thursday: First Televised Football Game

Over 20 million viewers watched the Indianapolis Colts defeat the Denver Broncos last Sunday Night. Not quite as many caught the pathetic football game played the next night. But, there was still a lot. The NFL routinely brings in a ridiculous number of viewers. It's must watch television. The marriage of television and the NFL began on October 22, 1939. That's when the National Broadcasting Company became the first network to televise a professional football game.

There were only 13,050 fans at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field to watch the hometown Dodgers defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 23-14. Three future Hall of Famers were on the field that day-quarterback Ace Parker and tackle Bruiser Kinard for the Dodgers and end Bill Hewitt for the Eagles. Only about five hundred New Yorkers who owned television sets witnessed the game in the comfort of their own homes, over NBC's experimental station W2XBS. Many others saw the telecast on monitors while visiting the RCA Pavilion at the World's Fair in New York where it was scheduled as a special event. Something that we easily take for granted now must have been quite a thrill 74 years ago. Now, we can watch games on a device that we hold in our hands. That's inconceivable!

Allen (Skip) Walz was the play-by-play announcer for NBC that day. "I'd sit with my chin on the rail in the mezzanine, and the camera was over my shoulder," remembered Walz. "I did my own spotting, and when the play moved up and down the field, on punts and kickoffs, I'd point to tell the cameraman what I'd be talking about." Walz had none of the visual aids, monitors, screens, or spotters used today. There were only two iconoscope cameras. One was located in the box seats on the 40-yard line and the other was with Walz in the mezzanine section.

There were no commercial interruptions during the game. I would definitely invite a return to that crude practice. That first televised game had another sort of interruption.

"It was a cloudy day, when the sun crept behind the stadium there wasn't enough light for the cameras," according to Walz. "The picture would get darker and darker, and eventually it would go completely blank, and we'd revert to a radio broadcast." I'm glad that they've worked out that little issue.

This week, we celebrate the anniversary of the union of television and the NFL. We've come a long way.