Sports have been around forever, but the way they’re broadcast to fans and onlookers from around the world has changed significantly over the last century. From early radio sets to new-found streaming services, listening or watching your favorite sport is evolving all the time.

As the evolution of sports broadcasting moved from radio to streaming, so did the availability of these technologies. So in this article, we’ll outline the elements driving the evolution of sports broadcasting from radio to streaming throughout the years, including how broadcasting started versus how it is now.

Radio

In the earliest days of sports broadcasting, the easiest and most readily available form of “watching the game” was just listening to commentary on the radio. Reportedly, the American Cup was the first sport to be broadcast over the radio by Guglielmo Marconi back in 1899, meaning we’ve come a long way over the last 125 years. In 1911, Kansas had its first pre-recorded sportscast where they attempted to recreate football plays based on telegraph updates. By 1921, commentary voices were added over the broadcast of a college baseball game, and many radio broadcasts quickly hopped onto this trend. As the bandwidth for radio signals increased along with higher-quality technology, listening to the games on the radio became an integral part of sports culture for people of all incomes.

Live Television

It would take until 1939 for the first televised sporting event to occur. That was the 1939 US Summer Olympics and it created a new era of literally watching sports from your own home. As TV got better and better so did the sports coverage, and by 1951, the first colorized baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves took place on TV. This not only improved the viewership experience but drove in an overall wider audience, making it a vital milestone in the evolution of sports broadcasting. Now, you could watch replays, highlights, close-ups, and different camera angles, all while still being able to listen to the game’s commentary, making it truly revolutionary for its time.

Streaming Services

Now, in the digital age of media, you can stream virtually any sport from any league anywhere in the world. By enhancing the accessibility of what was originally only available through cable or satellite is now viewable as long as you have an internet connection! Since the popular rise of televised sports events, third-party companies sought exclusive streaming rights for different leagues depending on the sport, leading to a diverse selection of available streaming apps. Instead of all the games being broadcast on just ABC, NBC, and FOX television channels, now the games broadcast by ABC, NBC and FOX would be streamed by a streaming service offering a package of your favorite sports channels combined for a monthly subscription-based fee. This gives more power to the consumers over what they get to watch, including the leagues and sports they get to choose from. Being a viewer that belongs to one or more dedicated streaming services is the general trend nowadays, as now with the evolution of sports broadcasting from radio to streaming, fans get to consume sports content at their own pace.