The History of How We Follow Sports

From Philip Bump at The Atlantic on October 26, 2011:

Last weekend, Rick Santorum was caught watching a college football game while Newt Gingrich gave a speech at an event. While a breach of protocol, it didn’t exactly cause an uproar. People have always liked to follow along with sports — and have never really liked to listen to political speeches.

He’s just lucky he lives in this century. Its a luxury of modern sports that you can bring the game with you. Santorum was watching football on a small tablet; he could as easily have been streaming a ballgame over an iPhone, or watching a constantly-updated gamecast. Should he have had more discretion, he could at a minimum have peeked at scores over the web.

A hundred years ago, sports fans — read: baseball fans — were not so lucky.

Read the full article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/following-baseball-from-puppet-reenactments-to-modern-sportscasts/247416/

Related link: “Action Jackson: Watching Baseball Remotely, Before TV”, by Eric Zweig (Summer 2010 Baseball Research Journal)



Originally published: October 27, 2011. Last Updated: October 27, 2011.