Fair enough, though once you (appropriately) call me out on my USA-centrism, no need to stop at Europe and Canada. There’s a big wide world out there.
I did a little google searching, and could not find any pre-1975 women sports tv broadcasters outside of the US, but I suspect there are several and I missed them. More to the point though, my real question, properly specified, is something like: were there any women working on American network television covering major sports prior to George in 1975? The best source I found on this was an article titled “Women in Sportscasting: A Brief History by Lou Schwartz: americansportscastersonline.com/womeninsportscasting.html This identifies two women prior to George that meet my criteria ( or maybe just one, depending on definition): 1. Donna De Varona (I kick myself a little for this, as I should have at least suspected her, or at least someone in the Olympic movement) worked on ABC (WWoS) starting at age 17 (most specific her Wikipedia article gets) so ~1964. But, frankly I was not really thinking of swimming or the Olympics... 2. Jane Chastain, who did local TV sports stuff, in 1960s, is credited as the first woman to work a network NFL game for CBS in 1974 (with Bob Criqui and Irv Cross). So, in the limited, biased spirit in which I initially asked my question, the answer I guess really is Jane Chastain, who did network NFL broadcasting a year before George (and unlike George, was an actual sports journalist). Chastain went on to be a conservative political commentator, so not my role model, but still, happy to give credit where it is due. I was a kid watching the NFL in 1974, but don’t remember Chastain (though do now remember talk of a woman working a game that the adult men around me thought was so bad she set the case for women sports commentators back a decade). Maybe her game did not play in LA. I do remember George the following year, and not for her broadcasting ability or sports knowledge (sorry, I was relatively newly arrived into puberty that fall). On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 6:26 PM Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote: > Europe and maybe Canada had female sportscaster's. > On May 16, 2020, 6:08 PM -0700, PGage <[email protected]>, wrote: > > In the first sentence of the Variety Obit it says that she was “one of > the first leading female sports broadcasters...” > > Which got me thinking, why doesn’t it say she was the first leading female > sports broadcasters? She premiered on NFL Today in 1975, can anyone think > of a woman in that field prior to that? > > On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 5:28 PM Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote: > >> She and Jimmy can talk football again. >> >> Blood disorder complications, 70. >> >> >> https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/phyllis-george-nfl-today-host-dead-dies-sports-broadcaster-1234608748/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=exacttarget&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=206619_05-16-2020_headline&utm_term=6321775 >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CABru7%2Bem7oj7yS%2BTwCX8aWEw_VofQDE9XNtNPBQKTOjdnhsTeg%40mail.gmail.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CABru7%2Bem7oj7yS%2BTwCX8aWEw_VofQDE9XNtNPBQKTOjdnhsTeg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > Sent from Gmail Mobile > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYK2fXOvQ7w1y_cnUrHmV8r9jRGKoPqCAYhjqviaEMgMcw%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYK2fXOvQ7w1y_cnUrHmV8r9jRGKoPqCAYhjqviaEMgMcw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/7dd2a233-be42-4984-bf10-7e915cb52ebf%40Spark > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/7dd2a233-be42-4984-bf10-7e915cb52ebf%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYLdUG8dNN%3D7A5ajaL-K-5o9oQ2r2aF03u9stq30soNxsw%40mail.gmail.com.
