University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations August 2015 "Bring the Fan to the Game:" Football, Baseball, and the Transformation of Sports Television into Entertainment Ethan Collins University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the History Commons, and the Mass Communication Commons Recommended Citation Collins, Ethan, ""Bring the Fan to the Game:" Football, Baseball, and the Transformation of Sports Television into Entertainment" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 946. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/946 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. “BRING THE FAN TO THE GAME:” FOOTBALL, BASEBALL, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SPORTS TELEVISION INTO ENTERTAINMENT by Ethan Collins A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee August 2015 ABSTRACT “BRING THE FAN TO THE GAME:” FOOTBALL, BASEBALL, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SPORTS TELEVISION INTO ENTERTAINMENT by Ethan Collins The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015 Under the Supervision of Associate Professor Elana Levine This thesis analyzes the growing symbiosis of the sport-television relationship as it evolved during the 1960s. Professional football and baseball are primarily considered they demonstrate the ways television impacted local and national audiences. Football embraced television as a way to disseminate the game to a wider, national audience. Baseball, because of its long history as a local attraction, resisted the encroachment of television.