ESPN is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The company was founded in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen along with his son Scott Rasmussen and Ed Eagan.
James Lampley is an American sportscaster, news anchor, film producer, and restaurant owner. He was best known as a blow-by-blow announcer on HBO World Championship Boxing for 30 years. He also had covered a record 14 Olympic Games on U.S. television, most recently the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport, whilst others emphasize strategy and sport management. Some, such as Need for Speed, Arch Rivals and Punch-Out!!, satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes. The sports genre is one of the oldest genres in gaming history.
Alan Richard Michaels is an American television sportscaster currently working as the play-by-play announcer for Thursday Night Football on Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on network sports television since 1971, with his most recent work being with NBC Sports after nearly three decades (1976–2006) with ABC Sports. Michaels is known for his many years calling play-by-play of National Football League games, including ABC Monday Night Football from 1986 to 2005 and NBC Sunday Night Football from 2006 to 2021. He is also known for famous calls in other sports, including the Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Winter Olympics and the earthquake-interrupted Game 3 of the 1989 World Series.
Track & Field, also known as Hyper Olympic in Japan and Europe, is a 1983 Olympic-themed sports video game developed by Konami for arcades. The Japanese release sported an official license for the 1984 Summer Olympics. In Europe, the game was initially released under the Japanese title Hyper Olympic in 1983, before re-releasing under the US title Track & Field in early 1984.
Punch-Out!!, originally titled Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, is a 1987 boxing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Part of the Punch-Out!! series, it is an adaptation of the arcade video games Punch-Out!! (1984) and Super Punch-Out!! (1984). Differences from the arcades include the addition of undisputed world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson as the final boss. It received critical acclaim, and is retrospectively considered one of the greatest video games of all time.
Keith Max Jackson was an American sports commentator, journalist, author, and radio personality, known for his career with ABC Sports (1966–2006). While he covered a variety of sports over his career, he is best known for his coverage of college football from 1952 until 2006, and his distinctive voice, "a throwback voice, deep and operatic. A voice that was to college football what Edward R. Murrow's was to war. It was the voice of ultimate authority in his profession."
Cinemaware was a video game developer and publisher that released several popular titles in the 1980s based on various film themes. The company was resurrected in 2000, before being acquired by eGames in 2005.
ESPN on ABC is the branding used for sports event and documentary programming televised by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States. Officially, the broadcast network retains its own sports division; however, in 2006, ABC's sports division was merged into ESPN Inc., which is the parent subsidiary of the cable sports network ESPN that is majority owned by ABC's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, in partnership with Hearst Communications.
ABC Monday Night Football is an American football video game named after the television broadcast of the same name.
4D Sports Boxing is a 3D boxing video game of the 4D Sports series, with motion capture animation, developed by Distinctive Software. The game is part of the 4D Sports series along with 4D Sports Driving and 4D Sports Tennis.
In the history of video games, the first-generation era refers to the video games, video game consoles, and handheld video game consoles available from 1972 to 1983. Notable consoles of the first generation include the Odyssey series, the Atari Home Pong, the Coleco Telstar series and the Color TV-Game series. The generation ended with the Computer TV-Game in 1980, but many manufacturers had left the market prior due to the market decline in 1977 and the start of the second generation of video game consoles.
Wii Sports is a 2006 sports simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. The 1.0 (pre-release) version of the game was released in North America along with the Wii on November 19, 2006, and the 1.1 version was released in Japan, Australia, and Europe the following month. Nintendo then changed to selling the 1.1 version in North America a couple months later. It was included as a pack-in game with the console in all territories except Japan, making it the first sports game included with the launch of a Nintendo system since Mario's Tennis for the Virtual Boy in 1995. The game is available on its own as part of the Nintendo Selects collection of games.
Evander Holyfield's "Real Deal" Boxing is a boxing video game that was developed by ACME Interactive and published by Sega in 1992, released for the Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Gear consoles. It was followed by a sequel in 1993, Greatest Heavyweights, which featured a number of improvements.
ESPN Classic was an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and Hearst Communications.
The Olympic Games aired in the United States on the broadcast network ABC during the 1960s to the 1980s. ABC first televised the Winter Olympic Games in 1964, and the Summer Olympic Games in 1968. ABC last televised the Summer Olympics in 1984 and Winter Olympics in 1988.
In South Korea, video games are considered to be a major social activity, with most of the games being cooperative or competitive. Locally developed role-playing, first-person shooter, MMORPG and mobile games have proven to be very popular in the country. Professional competition surrounding video games also enjoy a substantial following in South Korea—major tournaments are often broadcast on television and have large prizes available.
Sports programming on the American Broadcasting Company is provided on occasion, primarily on weekend afternoons; since 2006, the ABC Sports division has been defunct, with all sports telecasts on ABC being produced in association with sister cable network ESPN under the branding ESPN on ABC. While ABC has, in the past, aired notable sporting events such as the NFL's Monday Night Football, and various college football bowl games, general industry trends and changes in rights have prompted reductions in sports broadcasts on broadcast television.
ABC was the first American television network to broadcast the Pan American Games in 1963, when they devoted one episode of their Wide World of Sports anthology program to the games. They doubled their coverage to two episodes of the show in 1967. CBS then bought the rights to the 1975 and 1979 Games at the same time. Their coverage in 1975 was mainly shown on CBS Sports Spectacular, their equivalent to Wide World of Sports. CBS repeated the process of airing most of its coverage on CBS Sports Spectacular in 1979.
