| Industry | Television syndication |
|---|---|
| Founded | December 27, 1968 (56 years ago) (1968-12-27) |
| Defunct | August 29, 1993 (32 years ago) (1993-08-29) |
| Fate | Closed |
| Headquarters | New York City,New York[1] |
| Owner | Eddie Einhorn (1968-1973) Corinthian Broadcasting Corporation (1973-1993; becoming a subsidiary ofDun & Bradstreet in 1969) |
| Parent | TVS Inc.[2] |
TheTelevision Sports Television Network,[3][4][5] orTVS Television Network for short (commonly referred to as justTVS), was asyndicator of American sports programming. It was one of several "occasional" national television networks that sprang up in the 1960s to take advantage of the establishment of independent (mostlyUHF) television stations and relaxation of theAT&T Long Lines usage rates.
Eddie Einhorn had begun broadcasting radio coverage of college basketball and built a network of radio stations that covered theNCAA Division I men's basketball tournament games. He later moved into television coverage of college basketball games.
Founded by Einhorn on December 27, 1968, and operated through TVS Inc., TVS originally telecastcollege basketball games to regional networks at a time when the sport was of no interest to the national networks. Taking advantage of intense regional collegiate rivalries, the network blossomed in the 1960s and developed into a full service sports network. Einhorn proceeded to put together a Saturday afternoon TVS "game of the week" concept that often featured some of the major midwesternindependent teams such asMarquette,DePaul, andNotre Dame. These games were widely syndicated at least in theeast andmidwest.
On January 20, 1968, TVS put together the "Game of the Century" (see below) between theUCLA Bruins andHouston Cougars basketball teams at the Houston Astrodome. This was the game that made college basketball a television broadcast commodity. Six years later (January 19, 1974), TVS televised another historic basketball game as the Bruins fell to Notre Dame, 71-70, breaking the Bruins' 88-game winning streak. TVS proceeded to syndicate a few games nationally each year, often involving UCLA in the middle of their run of 10 national championships in a 12-year span. TVS often used late night time slots for its nationally syndicated games which were played on the west coast.
In addition to these individual games, TVS was a pioneer in bringing college basketball to a national scope-first by their own efforts in the early 1970s, primarily withDick Enberg andRod Hundley (sometimes Enberg and Hundley would call aPac-8 game on a Friday night, fly to the midwest for the TVS game of the week on Saturday afternoon, and then head back to thewest coast to call a Pac-8 game on Saturday night), then in 1975, teaming withNBC Sports in a cooperative effort to regionalize NBC's coverage on Saturday afternoons (NBC/local talent, TVS production crews).[6] This partnership lasted through 1983, though it was hampered in later years by NBC losing the rights to theNCAA Division I Men's College Basketball Tournament toCBS Sports in 1982. After the NBC partnership ended and college sports telecasts underwent acourt-ordered decentralization in 1984, TVS went back to regionalizing games on their own—a forerunner to the regionalization often seen today.
Besides Dick Enberg and Rod Hundley (who worked withMerle Harmon on the January 7, 1973, contest betweenKansas and Notre Dame), other broadcast teams for TVS' college basketball coverage included John Ferguson andJoe Dean (who called the February 21, 1970 contest betweenKentucky andLSU),Monte Moore andEd Macauley (who called the January 2, 1971 contest betweenDayton and UCLA),Charlie Jones andElgin Baylor (who called the January 26, 1972 contest betweenProvidence andUSC),Ray Scott andBill O'Donnell (who called the January 14, 1973 contest betweenSW Louisiana andOral Roberts),Al Michaels andTom Hawkins (who called the January 26, 1974, contest between Notre Dame and UCLA),Max Falkenstein and Paul Deweese (Big Eight Conference) andJay Randolph andBilly Packer (who called the November 17, 1979 contest betweenDuke and Kentucky, November 22, 1980 contest between DePaul andLouisville) and November 21, 1981 contest betweenBYU andVirginia).
The game that really popularized televised college basketball was aprime time Saturday night broadcast on January 20, 1968 between two powerhouse teams that had met in the1967 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The undefeated, second-rankedHouston Cougars hosted the equally unbeaten, top-rankedUCLA Bruins at theHouston Astrodome. The Bruins were the defending national champions and riding a 47-game winning streak. Eddie Einhorn paid $27,000 for the broadcast rights on TVS.[7] Altogether, Einhorn signed up 120 stations, many of whom were network affiliates that dropped or time-shifted their regular programming to show the game.[8] Houston won, 71–69, in front of a then-record crowd of 52,693, and the contest was soon dubbed "The Game of the Century".
The "Game of the Century" showed that regular-season college basketball action was a viable nationwide product; previously, only NCAA post-season games were broadcast on national TV, but only on evidence that broadcasters were going to make a profit from the broadcasts.
Whilecollege basketball remained the TVS Television Network's signature series, they also expanded into tennis,college footballbowl games,NASL pro soccer, tennis, and golf. They also televised theNBA–ABA All-Star Game between the rival professional basketball leagues.[9]
In1974, the network became the official telecaster of theWorld Football League. (TVS dropped its coverage of the WFL prior to 1975, contributing to the league's already imminent demise; the league had no national television contract for their shortened second season.) TVS also airedWorld Championship Tennis.
In the 1970s, TVS began producing entertainment programming, includingSinatra: The Main Event forABC in 1974. For many years, TVS produced sports and entertainment programming fromLas Vegas including theAlan King Tennis Classic atCaesars Palace;Arm Wrestling at theImperial Palace,Fun Moments in Sports atBally's;Bowling fromSam's Town and the Showboat; The Ladies Pro Bowlers Tour (LPBT), andOne Club Golf from theDesert Inn.
By 1973, Einhorn sold his interest in the network to the Corinthian Broadcasting Corporation[10] for $5 million[11] and later on became the head ofCBS Sports, and later became an owner of theChicago White Sox withJerry Reinsdorf; he would also spend time as owner of theUSFL'sChicago Blitz. The network stalled in the 1990s, with the trademark status for the network's branding expiring on August 29, 1993.[12] It is presumed that the network itself would cease operations soon after.
According to a search on the website for the New York State Department of State Division of Corporations, TVS, Inc. itself would eventually ceased operations in 1995.
TVS Television Network of New York, N.Y.
EXPIRED on 8/29/1993
| Preceded by None | Syndication Rights Holder toSoutheastern Conference men's basketball 1969-1983 | Succeeded by |