David Rosenthal

So the LA Rams, they do an individual deal in 1950 with the Admiral Television Company to broadcast the Rams games.

But they put a clause in the deal because they'd seen what had happened with baseball that Admiral would guarantee revenue back to the Rams for any loss in attendance.

And this is a really bad deal for Admiral because attendance declines 50%, 5-0.

Oh, and it was in black and white on a tiny screen.

Like, yeah, all of these things.

But the industry was new.

Everybody was figuring everything out.

The TV set manufacturers, the networks, the content, the sports leagues.

One of the big marketing messages was...

the game comes to you.

You don't have to leave.

Buy this appliance, put it in your home, and it's like a magical window, like you have a seat at the game.

And it really did depress attendance.

A saying ends up being developed in baseball that, sadly for baseball, they stuck to for a very, very long time, that radio wets the appetite, television satiates it.

Hmm.

It's a new revenue stream, but it's hurting the golden goose of ticket sales.

They did have a TV deal, but I think it was $5,000.

Yeah.

This is the thing.

Football, even amongst the individual teams, kept experimenting through the early 50s, whereas baseball basically shut it down and turned away from TV.