Sports Programming
As an independent station, channel 9's schedule was heavy on sports programming. Early in its history WOR-TV established itself as the home of National League baseball in New York, carrying games of the Brooklyn Dodgers (beginning in 1950) and the New York Giants (beginning in 1951) until both teams moved to California following the 1957 season. From 1958 to 1961 the station aired a small schedule of Philadelphia Phillies games, consisting of matchups against the Dodgers and Giants. In 1962 WOR-TV gained broadcast rights for the New York Mets, the National League's new expansion team. The partnership between the station and the team would last through the 1998 season, after which the Mets moved their broadcasts to WPIX.
Channel 9 acquired rights for the NHL's New York Rangers and the NBA's New York Knicks in 1966, holding onto both teams until 1989 (when the two teams became cable-exclusive on the MSG Network). The New York Islanders, New York/New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets, local college basketball, New York Cosmos soccer, WCW and WWWF/WWF/WWE wrestling also shared airtime on channel 9. For a generation of New York sports fans, the station became synonymous with its relationships with the Mets, Knicks, Rangers, Islanders and the World Wrestling Federation.
WWOR was also the setting of an infamous interview with former World Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson in January 1999, with the video clip of the interview being shown on several television specials. In the interview to talk about his then comeback fight against Francois Botha, Tyson shouted several expletives, threats, and told the audience to switch the station off. This prompted sportscaster Russ Salzberg to abruptly end the interview, giving Tyson a half-hearted wish of luck in his upcoming fight.
From April 29, 1999 to September 15, 2006 and from October 3, 2008 to September 24, 2010, WWOR-T aired WWE's Friday Night Smackdown while under both the UPN and MyNetwork TV affiliations.
In late September 2001, WWOR-TV aired a number of New York Yankees baseball games that were originally scheduled to air on WNYW. In 2005, channel 9 picked up Yankees games on a full-time basis, with the broadcasts produced by the YES Network.
On August 10, 2012, WWOR-TV aired a pre-season New York Giants football game. WNBC could not air the game due to its commitments to broadcast the 2012 Summer Olympics.
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Famous quotes containing the words sports and/or programming:
“...I didn’t come to this with any particular cachet. I was just a person who grew up in the United States. And when I looked around at the people who were sportscasters, I thought they were just people who grew up in the United States, too. So I thought, Why can’t a woman do it? I just assumed everyone else would think it was a swell idea.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 85 (June 17, 1991)
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)