The Television Sports Television Network , or TVS Television Network for short (commonly referred to as just TVS ), was a syndicator of American sports programming. It was one of several "occasional" national television networks that sprang up in the 1960s to take advantage of the establishment of independent (mostly UHF ) television stations and relaxation of the AT&T Long Lines usage rates.
29-471: Eddie Einhorn had begun broadcasting radio coverage of college basketball and built a network of radio stations that covered the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament games. He later moved into television coverage of college basketball games. Founded by Einhorn on December 27, 1968, and operated through TVS, Inc., the network originally telecast college basketball games to regional networks at
58-654: A bronze Jayhawk to commemorate his long years of service to the University of Kansas . His name and "number" (60, for the number of years he had broadcast for the Jayhawks), were also hung on a banner in Allen Fieldhouse with those of the great players that have played for KU. This retirement ceremony made Falkenstien the 27th person so honored by the University, and the first non- athlete . This game
87-433: A clear voice." Falkenstien's first job in radio was at WREN, then a Lawrence radio station. "A guy named Earl Bratten gave me some news copy to read and I got the job," Falkenstien said. He worked before and after school and on weekends, usually 40 hours a week, and earned $ 90 a month. "The first time I ever went on the air was a Sunday morning to give a promo for an Eleanor Roosevelt broadcast," Falkenstien said, smiling. "It
116-642: A profit from the broadcasts. While college basketball remained the TVS Television Network's signature series, they also expanded into tennis, college football bowl games , NASL pro soccer , tennis, and golf. They also televised the NBA–ABA All-Star Game between the rival professional basketball leagues. In 1974 , the network became the official telecaster of the World Football League . (TVS dropped its coverage of
145-580: A senior vice president in December 1994. Falkenstien's final broadcast in Allen Fieldhouse came on March 1, 2006, in the last home game of Kansas' 2006 basketball season, in which KU defeated Colorado , 75-54. Falkenstien was honored in a special halftime ceremony, which included his family, friends, some former KU players, and a speech from his on-air partner of 22 years, Bob Davis . Athletic Director Lew Perkins presented Falkenstien with
174-525: A single franchise in all of professional sports . Falkenstien's father Earl was business manager of the KU athletic department for 33 years. Falkenstien's biology class at Liberty Memorial High School trooped over to KFKU, then KU's 50-watt radio station, in the early 1940s. "Each of us had to make some kind of comment -- it must have been a boring show," Falkenstien reflected, "and a lady came up to me afterward and asked me if wanted to be in radio because I had such
203-461: A time when the sport was of no interest to the national networks. Taking advantage of intense regional collegiate rivalries, the network blossomed in the 1960s and developed into a full service sports network. Einhorn proceeded to put together a Saturday afternoon TVS "game of the week" concept that often featured some of the major midwestern independent teams such as Marquette , DePaul , and Notre Dame . These games were widely syndicated at least in
232-610: A time when the sport was of no interest to the national networks. The first broadcast was a semi-final game between Bradley University vs. St. Bonaventure University in the 1960 National Invitation Tournament from Madison Square Garden . Einhorn helped put together the first national broadcast of college basketball for the Game of the Century between the Houston Cougars and UCLA Bruins in 1968. He later sold his interest in
261-845: The Alan King Tennis Classic at Caesars Palace ; Arm Wrestling at the Imperial Palace , Fun Moments in Sports at Bally's ; Bowling from Sam's Town and the Showboat ; The Ladies Pro Bowlers Tour (LPBT), and One Club Golf from the Desert Inn . By 1973, Einhorn sold his interest in the network to the Corinthian Broadcasting Corporation for $ 5 million and later on became the head of CBS Sports , and later became an owner of
290-752: The Chicago White Sox with Jerry Reinsdorf ; he would also spend time as owner of the USFL 's Chicago Blitz . The network stalled in the 1990s, with the trademark status for the network's branding expiring on August 29, 1993. It is presumed that the network itself would cease operations soon after. According to a search on the website for the New York State Department of State Division of Corporations, TVS, Inc. itself would eventually ceased operations in 1995. Eddie Einhorn Eddie Einhorn (January 3, 1936 – February 24, 2016)
319-602: The United States Football League ; as the proposed owner of the league's dormant Chicago franchise , Einhorn was one of the most outspoken supporters of the proposed, but ultimately failed, attempt to move to fall in 1986. He was an owner of the IWA wrestling promotion in United States in 1975. The promotion was originally intended to be the first one to run cards nationally and promoted mainly in
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#1732781007933348-510: The University of Kansas (1946–2006), Falkenstien covered more than 1,750 men's basketball games and 650 football games, a span that included every game played in Allen Fieldhouse until his retirement, and was one of the longest announcing tenures in sports. By comparison, Vin Scully 's 67 seasons with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers is the record for longest broadcasting tenure with
377-590: The east and midwest . On January 20, 1968, TVS put together the "Game of the Century" (see below) between the UCLA Bruins and Houston Cougars basketball teams at the Houston Astrodome. This was the game that made college basketball a television broadcast commodity. Six years later (January 19, 1974), TVS televised another historic basketball game as the Bruins fell to Notre Dame, 71-70, breaking
406-442: The Bruins' 88-game winning streak. TVS proceeded to syndicate a few games nationally each year, often involving UCLA in the middle of their run of 10 national championships in a 12-year span. TVS often used late night time slots for its nationally syndicated games which were played on the west coast. In addition to these individual games, TVS was a pioneer in bringing college basketball to a national scope-first by their own efforts in
435-643: The January 14, 1973 contest between SW Louisiana and Oral Roberts ), Al Michaels and Tom Hawkins (who called the January 26, 1974, contest between Notre Dame and UCLA), Max Falkenstein and Paul Deweese ( Big Eight Conference ) and Jay Randolph and Billy Packer (who called the November 17, 1979 contest between Duke and Kentucky, November 22, 1980 contest between DePaul and Louisville ) and November 21, 1981 contest between BYU and Virginia ). The game that really popularized televised college basketball
464-595: The January 7, 1973, contest between Kansas and Notre Dame), other broadcast teams for TVS' college basketball coverage included John Ferguson and Joe Dean (who called the February 21, 1970 contest between Kentucky and LSU ), Monte Moore and Ed Macauley (who called the January 2, 1971 contest between Dayton and UCLA), Charlie Jones and Elgin Baylor (who called the January 26, 1972 contest between Providence and USC ), Ray Scott and Bill O'Donnell (who called
493-590: The Midwest and even ran cards in the Carolinas. After his success as a broadcasting executive, he was selected to join Jerry Reinsdorf's ownership group of the Chicago White Sox when it was purchased in 1981, due in part to him meeting Reinsdorf while he was in law school. While involved in the team, he acted as the team's president and chief operating officer from 1981 to 1990, before transitioning into
522-517: The WFL prior to 1975, contributing to the league's already imminent demise; the league had no national television contract for their shortened second season.) TVS also aired World Championship Tennis . In the 1970s, TVS began producing entertainment programming, including Sinatra: The Main Event for ABC in 1974. For many years, TVS produced sports and entertainment programming from Las Vegas including
551-549: The broadcast rights on TVS. Altogether, Einhorn signed up 120 stations, many of whom were network affiliates that dropped or time-shifted their regular programming to show the game. Houston won, 71–69, in front of a then-record crowd of 52,693, and the contest was soon dubbed " The Game of the Century ". The "Game of the Century" showed that regular-season college basketball action was a viable nationwide product; previously, only NCAA post-season games were broadcast on national TV, but only on evidence that broadcasters were going to make
580-545: The early 1970s, primarily with Dick Enberg and Rod Hundley (sometimes Enberg and Hundley would call a Pac-8 game on a Friday night, fly to the midwest for the TVS game of the week on Saturday afternoon, and then head back to the west coast to call a Pac-8 game on Saturday night), then in 1975, teaming with NBC Sports in a cooperative effort to regionalize NBC's coverage on Saturday afternoons (NBC/local talent, TVS production crews). This partnership lasted through 1983, though it
609-571: The network and became the head of CBS Sports . Later, he would co-found subscription TV channel Sportsvision , which, after a number of sales and restructurings, eventually became cable network Sportschannel . For his role in propelling NCAA basketball into a more public light, he was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. Einhorn's TVS network carried the World Football League in its inaugural 1974 season . He would later emerge in
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#1732781007933638-490: The network because he really wasn't interested in earning a living as a play-by-play broadcaster. He was program and station manager of WREN radio from 1955 until 1967, when he had a falling out with the station's owner, former Kansas Governor Alf Landon . He then became the head of news and sports at WIBW radio and television from 1967 to 1970. After a one-year stint as the first general manager of Sunflower Cablevision, Falkenstien spent 23 years at Douglas County Bank, retiring as
667-551: The role of vice chairman from 1991 to 2015. Einhorn died on February 24, 2016, at the age of 80 from complications following a stroke. During the 2016 season, the White Sox wore a memorial patch on their uniforms in honor of Einhorn, a black diamond with "Eddie" in the center in white. Max Falkenstein Max Falkenstien (April 9, 1924 – July 29, 2019) was an American radio sports announcer. In his 60-year career at
696-478: Was a prime time Saturday night broadcast on January 20, 1968 between two powerhouse teams that had met in the 1967 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament . The undefeated, second-ranked Houston Cougars hosted the equally unbeaten, top-ranked UCLA Bruins at the Houston Astrodome . The Bruins were the defending national champions and riding a 47-game winning streak. Eddie Einhorn paid $ 27,000 for
725-539: Was also held on Kansas' senior night, which honored senior players Christian Moody , Jeff Hawkins , and Stephen Vinson in a post-game ceremony. The last broadcast of Falkenstien's sixtieth season came on March 17, 2006, in the first round of the 2006 NCAA Tournament . The fourth-seed Jayhawks lost the game, 73-77, to the thirteenth-seed Bradley Braves of the Missouri Valley Conference . The last football broadcast of Falkenstien's career came in
754-479: Was hampered in later years by NBC losing the rights to the NCAA Division I Men's College Basketball Tournament to CBS Sports in 1982. After the NBC partnership ended and college sports telecasts underwent a court-ordered decentralization in 1984, TVS went back to regionalizing games on their own—a forerunner to the regionalization often seen today. Besides Dick Enberg and Rod Hundley (who worked with Merle Harmon on
783-576: Was just a 30-second plug, but I was so scared when that red light came on." Falkenstien graduated from Liberty Memorial High School in 1942, six months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. After a semester at KU, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in hopes of becoming a meteorologist. He left the service in March 1946. After leaving the service, he went back to work for WREN. His first assignment
812-694: Was minority owner and vice chairman of the Chicago White Sox . Einhorn grew up in a Jewish family in Paterson, New Jersey , the son of Mae (née Lippman) and Harold B. Einhorn and resided in Alpine, New Jersey . Einhorn produced the nationally syndicated radio broadcast of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship in 1958. In 1960, he founded the TVS Television Network to telecast college basketball games to regional networks at
841-594: Was to do the play-by-play for the NCAA district final game between KU and Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University). He obtained a degree in mathematics from Kansas University in 1948. He also did play-by-play on TVS Saturday telecasts of Big Eight Conference games for several years. He was joined by Kansas State University broadcaster Paul Deweese. Credited with founding the KU Sports Network not long after World War II ended, Falkenstien quickly gave up
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