History of Major League Baseball on NBC
Open-knowledge reference entry
The following article details the history of Major League Baseball on NBC, the broadcast of Major League Baseball games on the NBC television network.
Early years
1930s
NBC television's relationship with Major League Baseball technically dates back to August 26, 1939. It was on that date that on W2XBS (an experimental television station in New York City which would ultimately become what is now NBC's flagship television station, WNBC), the first-ever Major League Baseball game was televised. With Red Barber announcing, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds played a doubleheader at Ebbets Field. The Reds won the first game 5–2 while the Dodgers won the second, 6–1. Barber called the game without the benefit of a monitor and with only two cameras capturing the game. One camera was on Barber and the other was behind the plate. Barber had to guess from which light was on and where it pointed.
1940s
By 1947, television sets, most with five and seven-inch screens, were selling almost as fast as they could be produced. Because of this, Major League teams began televising games and attracted a whole new audience into ballparks in the process.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of Major League Baseball on NBC” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.