Thursday of last week marked an important anniversary in sports media history, and I would have made a big deal about it if didn't happen to fall during a vacation week.
Better late than never, though: On Nov. 8, 1972, HBO debuted in 365 homes in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., first covering the Pennsylvania Polka Festival in Allentown, then the Canucks-Rangers game from the Garden.
Why Wilkes-Barre? Because people there had trouble receiving New York TV stations over the air because of the distance and the mountains in the way. So they were cable naturals.
(As HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg was giving me a history lesson recently, he stumbled over the word for what he called "the little dishes on their houses,'' finally remembering such things used to be called antennas. "I'm spacing out on the word, it was so long ago!'' he said. "Dinosaurs had them.'')
Why Canucks-Rangers? Because HBO, whose first sports programming boss was Marty Glickman, had a deal with the Garden to carry games from there.
By the mid-'70s HBO had rights to home games of nine NBA and six NHL teams, including the Knicks, Rangers, Celtics and Bruins.
For two years it even carried Yankees games!
Anyway, happy belated 35th anniversary, HBO.
Comments (6)
I know Spencer Ross did Yankees games on HBO in the 70's. HBO also had Game 06 of the ABA Finals Nets vs.Nuggets. One of the great nights in Nassau Coliseum history. The last night of the ABA.
I will never forget sitting in my house in Westchester, watching HBO and listening to WMCA John Sterling and Mike DiTomassio call the final ABA game and watching history as Game 6 of the ABA Finals was the last night of the red white and blue league.
In the early 80's growing up in Queens I had the antennae on the roof that only gave us HBO you put on channel 3 of the TV then switch the box. I don't remember the Yankees being on it though, I know the Mets were carried on WHT/Sportschannel HBO's rival in the NY area.
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Who won that Ranger/Canucks game on HBO?