Post by 1978fan on Jan 14, 2024 20:07:20 GMT
Eddie Einhorn founded a sports syndication service called TVS in the late 1960s. There was no such thing as ESPN back then, so syndicators ensured coverage for lots of games and events that the networks didn’t want or didn’t have time to air.
The bread and butter of TVS was college basketball. For many years it produced the regional broadcasts for NBC. As many as 6 to 8 games would air regionally on NBC as part one of a doubleheader while the network would produce the nationally televised main game in the second part of the doubleheader. TVS also sold individual games and conference packages directly to stations.
TVS also aired golf tournaments, tennis (both tournaments and made for TV matchups of top stars for big prize money), auto racing, non New Year’s Day college bowl games, the college all star games that would follow the bowls, and other sports. In 1974 TVS aired games of the WFL which was an ill-conceived and poorly executed attempt at taking on the NFL.
TVS was the key to the IWA getting syndicated nationally at the beginning when it aimed at being a nationwide and major league promotion. TVS already had a network of stations it could call on to air the IWA. I believe some leveraging was done by bundling TVS properties with mainstream sports when making deals with stations. One issue was that most stations that aired TVS sports productions were independent stations that already aired the local promotion’s show and wanted no part of the IWA.
After the attempt to run nationally ended and Johnny Powers took whoever was left to North Carolina to challenge Crockett, TVS was no longer involved although the group was able to get locally produced TV in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem area.