It would be incorrect to suggest that every sportscaster who followed McNamee adopted his strategy. It is important to note that some sportscasters frowned on the notion of becoming too dramatic or making themselves a part of the event they covered. They sought instead to "play it straight," to be less aring with eloquent elocution was entirely appropriate, even for a sport in which the stars often appeared to be fan and more a journalist. In doing so, they did not lose more like actors than  athletes. The  prominent  role is the respect of their peers or the public.

     Unlike today, many of the early sportscasters regularly called the games not from the stadium but from a studio many miles away, where they read and "per­formed" details of the game as reported on a telegraph wire ticker. The announcers used sound effects and creative language to enhance the sense that they were present at the game. The system worked, provided that the ticker also worked. Perhaps the most notable "re­creationist" landed his first job in the entertainment industry as a football announcer at an Iowa radio station. The year was 1932, and Ronald "Dutch" Reagan was paid $5 a game. Later, he would deliver similar re­ created broadcasts of Chicago Cubs' games for another Iowa radio station (and much later, the so-called Great Communicator would be elected president of the United States) .

     Many of the next generation of distinguished radio sportscasters, such as Mel Allen, Red Barber, Lindsey Nelson, and Bill Stern, would later become prominent voices in television's first decades as  a mass medium. Allen and Barber, famous for their play-by-play reporting for the Yankees and Dodgers, respectively, were the first broadcasters  enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Barber eschewed the notion that a sportscaster should "root, root, root for the home team ." Instead, he adopted an approach that might be called "objective" and let the action take center stage. Stern saw it differently. His fame develops partially from hosting a radio program  filled with fictional stories about real athletes and people. Stern acknowledged that he developed a following because of these harmless diversions (as he called them). Indeed, he did. He was voted the nation's most popular sportscaster 13 times.

     In the years immediately following World War II, television and sports used each other to expand their popularity with, and their ability to reach, a larger audience. Some scholars have suggested that during this period, sports teams and leagues had the advantage in the relationship because television networks desperately needed sports programming to fill the schedule. It was not uncommon for the networks to devote upward of 40 percent of their weeknight schedule to sports. Although roller derby and bowling played well on the small screen, boxing and professional wrestling were the sports best suited to the limitations of the first generation of television sets. Dennis James became the prototypical wrestling announcer. "I used to do it while wrestling matches in spontaneous poetry," he once said. His style showed that describing action in the advertisers would play in the  presentation of sports also developed in this period. For example, the Gillette company sponsored Cavalcade of Sports, which heavily promoted boxing and stayed on the air for 14 years. Sportscasting in the 1950s followed the radio  pattern of announcer enthusiasm. Many sportscasters and their employers conceived of their role as  something akin to being ambassadors and fans of the game. This style was perhaps perfected in the Midwest, where baseball announcers became synonymous with  the teams they covered on a daily basis. Harry Caray was the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals for 16 years before he was replaced by Jack Buck, a member of the baseball, football, and radio halls of fame. Buck remained with the team until his death in 2002. Caray eventually landed with the Chicago Cubs, for whom he worked from 1981 through 1998 . He was appreciated far more for his passion for baseball and  the Cubs than  he was for his ability to broadcast a game. In short, he was a personality.

     During the 1960s-the decade of the marriage of television and football-one of the more important revolutions in television sports was introduced, specifically on December 31, 1963, during an Anny-Navy football game. Instant replay would figure prominently in the phenomenal rise in popularity of televised football during the 1960s and beyond. Moreover, Pete Rozelle, the commissioner of the National Football League (NFL), envisioned how his sport could play well on television, that it could mean more than simply seeing the two teams play. The television networks agreed, and in 1964, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) paid an unprecedented $28 million dollars for television rights for NFL games and instantly recouped its investment with two $14 million sponsorship contracts, with Ford Motor Company and Philip Morris.

     Soon networks were competing for the same fans in what was supposedly the most important football game of the season. The Super Bowl debuted in January 1967, and Rozelle allowed both CBS and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to televise it. A Time magazine report suggested the dual network idea was deliberate, as it forced both networks to promote the game and entice viewers to watch. The game itself did not attract a large in-person audience, but both networks bought out their primary football announcing teams. In pregame promotions, both emphasized the excellence of their sportscasters . CBS offered Ray Scott, Jack Whitaker, Frank Gifford, and Pat Summer­ all, while NBC featured Curt Gowdy and Paul Christ­ man.

     The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) remained in the shadows of CBS and NBC throughout the 1950s. Roone Arledge, a producer (and eventual president) at ABC, however, viewed spectator sports as involving more than a passive audience and brought ABC into a new light. He created what was destined to become the longest-running sports program in television, Wide World of Sports, and hired a young Balti­ more announcer named James K. McManus to host the new show. McManus soon changed his name to Jim McKay and would go down in broadcast history as the man who first informed the world about the tragic terrorist attack that took the lives of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, West Germany.

     Arledge believed that a television network was not doing its job if it merely brought the game to the fans. Instead, he wanted to bring the fans to the game. He challenged his ABC crews to use all available production techniques to heighten the experience of the game. He wanted both men and women to feel like they were part of the in-stadium audience, even though they were sitting in their living rooms, at a bar, or some other location. In short, he wanted show business and sports to be linked.

     Soon after he was named president of the network's sports division, Arledge brought professional football to ABC. Monday Night Football began in 1970. The three-man announcing team included Keith Jackson, Don Meredith, and Howard Cosell. Jackson lasted only one season and was replaced by Frank Gifford. The recipe for success had been created: the sexy Gif­ ford, the easygoing Meredith. and the controversial Cosell remained together through 1973, when Meredith left. He returned in 1977. and the group (with Fran Tarkenton and O.J. Simpson intermittently joining the team) remained together through 1983.

     Arledge was also guided by the notion that announcer-approval clauses, in which teams approved or disapproved announcers. were inappropriate. This policy made ABC the first network  to allow-in  fact, to welcome--critical commentary to accompany the play-by-play.

     Cosell proved to be the beneficiary. He was not afraid to tackle issues he believed needed comment, and he developed a love-hate relationship with the audience. Cosell joined the elite ranks of Curt Gowdy, Chris Schenkel, McKay, Nelson, and Summerall when the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized his accomplishments with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He passed away one year later.

     Cosell's star was shining brightest at a time when ABC's next superstar was beginning to make his mark. In 1980, Al Michaels was given what at the time seemed to be a rather mundane assignment: play-by-play announcer for the network's hockey coverage during the Winter Olympics. But the stunning gold medal victory by the U.S. hockey team and Michaels' cry of "Do you believe in miracles!" in the final seconds of the Americans' victory over the Soviet Union remains unforgettable more than two decades later.

     One area in which Arledge did not serve as a pioneer was in the introduction of women as sportscasters. Former Miss America Phyllis George is generally credited with breaking sportscasting's gender barrier in 1975 when she joined The NFL Today on CBS, but at  least one woman served as an analyst in the 1950s. Myrtle Power was signed by CBS after earning short-lived celebrity status as a baseball expert on the game show The $64,000 Question.  While  women  have  continued to make inroads into  sportscasting  (consider  names such as Gayle Gardner and Lesley Visser), it has been a struggle. One of the lingering debates concerns whether female journalists should have access to male locker rooms. High-profile cases came to national prominence in the final decades of the 20th century. The most notable involved Lisa Olsen, a Boston  Herald  reporter who in 1990 accused several New England Patriot football players of exposing themselves and sexually harassing her while she interviewed other players.

     The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) went on the air in 1979 and launched another new era of sportscasting. ESPN moved rapidly from covering quasi sports events such as tractor pulls to become a household phenomenon. It now reaches more than 80 million U.S. television households, making it the largest cable network. ESPN's tremendous success allowed it to expand on cable (ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPN News), radio (ESPN Radio), and into print (ESPN The Magazine). Moreover, it provides substantial live coverage of all four major professional sports leagues in the United States. Although ESPN does not own broadcast rights to any of the "March Madness" games, the annual men's college basketball tournament, it does have the analyst who perhaps can be called that sport's greatest ambassador, Dick Vitale. The ever-present, ever-high-octane, ever-positive Vi­tale, the quintessential personality, attracts rowdy basketball fans wherever he goes.

     Chris Berman has been with ESPN from its infancy and remains one of its most popular announcers. A six­ time National Sportscaster of the Year honoree, Berman is best known for the nicknames he has given various athletes (e.g., Roberto "Remember the" Alomar). His style, which might be described as "hey. you need to listen to me," not only fits well at ESPN but also is central in a period in which a sportscaster's personality seems to be as important as the knowledge he or she brings to the event being covered.

     ESPN also should be recognized for hiring the first African-American woman in sports television. Robin Roberts joined ESPN in 1990 and wore many hats for the network before being named in 2002 the morning news host on ABC's Good Morning America.

     ABC's run of success with Monday Night Football began to wane after Cosell's departure. The program regularly earned ratings in the high teens and lower 20s during the Gifford, Meredith, and Cosell years, but since 1986 the show has continued to lose audience share. Moreover, this was a period in which there seemed to be an ever-revolving door in the broadcast booth. Following the 2001 season, in which the average rating was 11.5 (the lowest ever), ABC announced it had hired John Madden, the most popular football analyst of this generation, at a reported $5 million per year. This was not the first time Madden's popularity was rewarded. In 1993, after FOX outbid CBS for the rights to broadcast National Football Conference (NFC) games, Madden negotiated a contract with Rupert Murdoch that earned him a reported $30 million over four years. With that deal, Madden became the highest-paid sportscaster of all time.

     Madden says his "passion for the game" is what makes him tick. Perhaps surprisingly, his hiring did not generate immediate returns: ABC's ratings were no better in 2002 than in the previous year but were showing an increase in 2003.