Abstracts Category : Other

It Wasn't a Revolution, but it was Televised: The Craftingof the Sports Broadcasting Act

by Denis M Crawford

This thesis aims to provide historical context for theSports Broadcasting Act of 1961 which allowed professional sportsteams to collectively negotiate television contracts and equallyshare in the revenues. According to Immanuel Wallerstein, the statecrafting legislation to allow an anticompetitive business practiceis an example of a basic contradiction of capitalism beingreconciled. Researching the development of the SBA unveils twohistorically significant narratives. The first is the fact thatantitrust legislator Emanuel Celler crafted the act with the intentof providing the National Football League competition although theact unintentionally aided the formation of a professional footballmonopoly. The other is that the act legalized a collectivistbusiness practice in a time of anticommunist fervor and was writtenby a legislator with well-documented anticommunist credentials.This project utilized primary sources including the papers ofEmanuel Celler, business meeting minutes from both the American andNational Football Leagues, Congressional testimony and contemporarynewspapers. These primary sources were supported by secondarysources detailing the culture of the 1950s, Cold War America andthe history of other sports-related legislation.Advisors/Committee Members: Simonelli, David (Advisor).