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Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago (July 1984 Part 2): ESPN in Summer 1984

Continuing our look at a 40-years-ago TV Guide:

I am fascinated by ESPN's schedule on this Saturday: July 15, 1984. The network had been around for years at this point, and it is a bit of a dead sports zone in mid July, but STILL, wow.

6:30 AM brings Horse Racing Weekly, kind of a filler show.

7AM is Inside the USFL, which I know is a filler show because it shows up many times in the weekend listings!

7:30 is Pro Karate, and while it's a title fight, it was taped June 30 in Atlanta-- TWO WEEKS AGO!

9 is Aerobatics, "Stunt flying in the Oshkosh (Wisc.) Fly-in, taped in August 1983." 11 MONTHS AGO!

9:30 is College World Series Highlights.

10:30 is Play Your Best Golf, another program that recurs throughout the weekend.

11 is Super Bowl Highlights, action from SBXII between Dallas and Denver. SIX YEARS--OK, this goes in the category of classic sports, but still it is kind of odd for 11:00 A.M. And this is the Central time zone, so it's Noon on the East Coast.

11:30 is Inside the USFL again.

Noon is Boxing, and it's Leonard/Duran from Montreal in June 1980. It's classic sports again, so we allow it. I actually welcome that sort of thing.

1:00 brings us some live sports! It's USA vs. Argentina in Davis Cup doubles action, and I very well may have been watching some of this event coverage this weekend.

4:00 is Play Your Best Golf. TV Guide notes the time is approximate.

4l:30 is Hydroplane Racing, action taped in Evansville July 1.

5:30 is Sportscenter for the first time today.

6:30 is Golf, third-round play at the Merrill Lynch Golf Digest Senior Pro-Am, but it's taped from earlier!

8:00 We get some more tennis action, as we return to the Davis Cup. Oh, wait, it's the same coverage from earlier on tape delay.

10:30 is Sportscenter.

11:30 is--guess what--Inside the USFL.

Midnight is another presentation of the Jerry Trimble/Tony Rosser Pro Karate Association fight that was on at 7:30.

1:30 is Sportscenter.

2:30 is another presentation of the senior golf coverage from 6:30.

4:00 is--care to guess? Inside the USFL was a spectacular answer, but, no, it's Pro Karate again.

Sunday isn't much more dynamic. I won't go through the whole listings, but I will tell you the day starts with ESPN staple Australian Rules Football, a match taped June 30.

This is before so many cable networks ceded sports to ESPN and other sports channels. All over the dial you see sports programs like The Baseball Bunch on TBS, Baseball USA (with Don Drysdale) on USA Network, and Vic's Vacant Lot (formerly an ESPN program) and Reggie Jackson's World of Sports on Nickelodeon. It's like in the early days of cable, the channels felt obligated to show some kind of sports. Even early premium channel VEU (Video Entertainment Unlimited) has a History of the Olympics program.

WGN had Greatest Sports Legends, Nashville Network had several auto racing programs, and even CBN had Athletes in Action. Of course, NBC carried Major League Baseball in the afternoon,

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