History
Shortly after Michael joined WRC-TV in 1980, the station launched the program as George Michael's Sports Final, a local sports wrapup show on Sunday evenings, following the late newscast. After a successful four-year run in Washington, NBC's other owned-and-operated stations -- at the time in New York City, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Chicago -- added the program to their Sunday late-night schedules, and it was retitled as The George Michael Sports Machine. NBC-affiliated stations began to pick up the show in 1986, and in 1991 Group W Productions took Sports Machine into wider national syndication. The show moved to other syndicators such as Eyemark Entertainment, King World Productions, and ITC Entertainment before NBC Enterprises (now NBC Universal Television Distribution) began distributing the program in 2001.
As host, George Michael presented clips from the weekend's sporting events from across the United States and sometimes outside of the U.S. Unlike newer sports-related programming, Sports Machine did not usually present commentary or criticism and focused on the highlights, and, often toward the end of the show, an in-depth story about a particular athlete. The show was also somewhat unique in its occasional coverage of remarkable high school sports footage, and its occasional coverage of sports largely ignored by other sports wrap-up shows, such as ice hockey, NASCAR and other auto racing events, professional wrestling, rodeo, and equestrian events.
Read more about this topic: The George Michael Sports Machine
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