NEW YORK—Columbia University and Columbia Athletics celebrate the 80^th anniversary of the first live televised sporting event in the United States: a college baseball game between Columbia and Princeton played at Baker Field and broadcast by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) on May 17, 1939.
 
The live broadcast was a result of a suggestion made by Bob Harron, Columbia's sports information director at the time and later assistant to the president of the university. NBC showed Harron this new medium called television, which was unveiled at the 1939 World Fair. Harron's response: "Did you ever think of doing a sporting event?"
 
The result on May 17, 1939 was an NBC televised Columbia-Princeton baseball game, the second half of a doubleheader, with the legendary Bill Stern calling the action. The telecast received extensive media coverage including stories in the New York Times and Life Magazine. Princeton ended up defeating Columbia 2-1 in a 10-inning game.
 
NBC carried the game live to 400 or so television sets capable of receiving its broadcast signal. Satisfied with the results, NBC decided to try broadcasting a Major League Baseball game and achieved that goal three months later at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field.
 
The world's first televised sporting event had been the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.
 
Throughout history, Columbia University's and Columbia Athletics' ties to sports television are deep. Graduate Roone Arledge '52, an American sports, and news broadcasting executive, is best known as the founder of Monday Night Football, ABC World News Tonight, Primetime, Nightline and 20/20. One of Columbia's top all-time running backs in football Louis Kusserow '49 became an NBC producer and one of Columbia's best basketball players Chet Forte '57 became a director of Monday Night Football and other events for ABC.