On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 11:29 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > 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. >
My brain cells are misfiring on this and I'm sure I'm not recalling it properly, but there was a former professional female tennis player who gave color commentary on TV in France and she really knew her stuff. One time a player lost the first set, went and changed her shoes and the commentator correctly predicted a change in strategy and she won the next two sets and the match. The commentator retired. NBC was looking to bring her back for some commentary on NBC. Advertisers got worried because she was openly lesbian and they wanted to keep that under wraps, despite top players like Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King. It turns out she was fine reading a script in English but her extemporaneous commentary in English was unintelligible and NBC did not use her. I tried Googling this to find her name but I couldn't. Wasn't there an SCTV sketch based on a female Canadian sports commentator? > > 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 > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYLdUG8dNN%3D7A5ajaL-K-5o9oQ2r2aF03u9stq30soNxsw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. 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