The first college basketball game on TV was Pitt vs. Fordham in 1940

The first television basketball game for college took place on 28 February 1940, when Pitt faced against Fordham in Madison Square Garden.

Here is the TL/DR version on the first basketball game at the University on TV:

• Who: Pittsburgh 57, Fordham 37
• When: 28 February 1940
• Where: Madison Square Garden in New York
• Broadcasting from: NBC on W2XBS
• Spectators: Estimates differ from 400-1,000

The The game was broadcast on W2XBSOne of the few experimental stations began as the predecessors of modern television broadcasts. Today, W2XBS is known as WNBC or Channel 4 New York, the flag station of the NBC television network. The most famous arena in the country and a home for many famous university basketball moments that came was an ideal place to debut new technology. The double head of that day in 1940 included a second act with NYU No. 1 against Georgetown.

Imagine: The ability to return in time, to receive the monuments and sounds of the first basketball game that has been broadcast on television. Except … it wasn’t such a big deal. Most of the public were so easily ignored that finding artifacts from the game itself is not easy. Photos above and below and below come with the kind permission of Fordham’s Joe di Bari.

Fordham University also has a few photos from that night on top This article Since the 75th anniversary of the game and Getty Images has quite a great photo of the game on this link also. However, it is difficult to come to cover the game (and especially coverage the historical moment in television history) because television at that time was simply not a big problem. According to Mitchell Stephens, professor of journalism and mass communication on NYU, “Before 1947, the number of American houses with television ensembles could be measured in thousands.”

The radio was still the name of the game. The radio was so ubiquitous that Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had a whole page dedicated to the radio lists For every night broadcast. On the other hand, neither Pittsburgh Press nor Post-Gazette did not mention the upcoming television history in their relevant game previews on February 28, nor the story of the Associated Press, which used Post-Gazette nor Stringer Report used after the game made a historical moment in Madison Square Garden. Student newspaper Fordham, RAM, also failed to mention the television in your game story.

People just didn’t care much about broadcasting the game. Nowadays it’s hard to imagine.

Interestingly, just five months earlier the first television football match was also Fordham, and a small corner of the next day in the New York Times was devoted to Fordham’s victory against Waynesburg: “Rams had a well in half -time” “was the only mention of the Times in The Times.

As for the basketball game itself, Fordham maintained things in the first half and watched 28-23 at half-time. But Panthers used 14-2 running in the first eight minutes of the second half to open a huge lead and win by 20 points and eventually overcome RAMS 29-14 after the break.

Fordham ended that year with a record of 11-8, Pitt with a record of 8-9, and even did not get to the NCAA tournament, which was in the second year in the second year.

However, they both held a piece of history.