David Rosenthal

Indeed, baseball had a lot to lose.

And to be fair to all of them, in the early days, and I think for a long time, local market home television airing of home games absolutely depressed in-person attendance.

It would later take a presidential order from Richard Nixon to end the home blackouts.

And even then, only if the home games were sold out would the blackout be lifted.

It wasn't until after September 11th that blackouts were lifted, even if the home game wasn't sold out.

But it's a mess.

But Ben, as you say, in the 50s, these early television experiments are being run with sports.

And like, it is pretty bad.

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.