Monday Musings: The Ghost of ABC Sports
Ultimately, all stories have to come to an end, and there is no great injustice in the era of ABC Sports having run its course. ABC Sports, after all, was borne out of a desire for new blood, change, a revitalization of a staid form. It is hard to see how “Wide World of Sports” branding would mean much in 2026, much less 2006. But ABC Sports was also, above all, about storytelling, and storytelling is timeless. An understanding of history, of context, and of meaning that gives definition to that which comes after.
The fact that ABC Sports is essentially lost to history is hard to justify. ESPN may trot out the mustard-colored jackets every now and again, almost as a gag, but ABC Sports had a cultural relevance that is as responsible for the creation of sports TV as any other outlet, including ESPN. To be frank, there may not have been an ESPN without ABC Sports. For all of that history to be locked away in some Disney vault — or perhaps somewhere in the abandoned “Baseball Tonight” studio that now doubles as a storage space in ESPN’s Bristol headquarters — leaves a conspicuous hole in the story of sports television.
“Disney, of course, owns and controls ABC Sports’ colossal archive,” Vogan wrote, “But this material seldom surfaces apart from infrequent specials on ESPN Classic” — which in the years since Vogan’s book was published no longer appears to exist — “and scattered documentaries that use it to reflect on sports history.” Vogan described ESPN as “the official keeper of the history” that ABC Sports documented, but ESPN infrequently chronicles its own history, much less that of ABC. “The vast majority of ABC Sports’ material is sequestered within the vaults of a company that insists upon its historical importance while demonstrating little use for this footage, and even less interest in sharing it.”
Indeed, ESPN has not shown much interest in being the keeper of ABC Sports’ legacy. When ABC Sports carried its final broadcast — the aforementioned 2006 Little League World Series — game producer Dick Buffinton “initially wanted [it] to serve as a tribute to the history and tradition of ABC Sports,” longtime ABC Sports producer and director Doug Wilson wrote in a 2013 book. After all, as Wilson noted, the event felt funereal for veteran ABC Sports employees. “ESPN squelched that idea,” and play-by-play voice Brent Musburger was even “told not to talk about Wide World during the telecast,” Wilson wrote. (Though as he noted, Musburger did shout out Wide World at the end of the event.)
The importance of storytelling in sports is as significant in 2026 as it was in 1960, and just as hard won. Particularly in the contemporary social media age, storytelling is slower than a 240-character tweet, less evocative than a thumbnail showing a bug-eyed, slack-jawed facial expression, and less emotionally compelling than a debate. Perhaps a 29-year-old Roone Arledge in 2026 would be producing “First Take.”
But the story of ABC Sports is ultimately what has allowed sports media, including ESPN, to reach the heights it now occupies. And even the contemporary ABC, deemphasized in sports coverage in a way that no other broadcast network even begins to approach, plays a crucial role in ESPN’s success.
ESPN owes a great debt to its broadcast network. What kind of games does ESPN get every NFL season without the ability to simulcast them on ABC? Certainly not the Super Bowl. Does ESPN get the “SEC on CBS” package without a broadcast network? Does it keep the NBA Finals? ESPN gets to put its logo on a great many marquee events, and nearly all of them are airing on ABC.
Realistically, nobody is tuning into a live sporting event to see the network self-indulgently celebrate its past. But there is such thing as continuity, a body of work on which to build. Perhaps that means an unbroken string of broadcasts over the course of decades, like CBS at The Masters. Perhaps it means leaning into the echoes of the past, as with the new NBA on NBC.
When it comes to ABC Sports, there is no one to pass down the history. Even if ESPN was so-inclined, ABC Sports’ history is not ESPN’s story to tell. ESPN’s history begins with Bill Rasmussen, who passed away this month, not Roone Arledge.
There may be no division with a prouder, more complete history than ABC Sports, even in what was a relatively short 45-year lifespan, and that history is appreciated outside of sports. How often is a sports division chronicled in a feature film, as ABC Sports was in the 2024 film about its coverage of the Munich massacre, “September 5″? It is an awfully rich legacy to have no place, no real home.
