College football’s 150th anniversary: The 150 best moments that stood the test of time

87. NCAA vs. Board of Regents (1984)

For much of the 20th century, the NCAA retained exclusive rights to negotiate television contracts and to dictate which teams aired live and how frequently they did so. The situation, increasingly fraught by the early 1980s, led the Board of Regents at Georgia and Oklahoma to file a lawsuit against the NCAA.

The case would have far-reaching ramifications on the sport. Ruling that the NCAA violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act with their policy, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 27, 1984, that the organization could no longer restrict schools from negotiating television contracts.

The successful lawsuit opened the door for the College Football Association, formed in 1977 by 63 schools, to negotiate TV contracts for their members. In turn, this paved the way for the shift toward conference primacy, the creation of the Bowl Coalition and its successors, and an explosion of televised games available to the public.

86. Notre Dame Links Up with NBC (1990)

The College Football Association opened the way for schools to begin negotiation television contracts independent of the NCAA. As long as its members all remained committed to the power of numbers in negotiation, it was destined to continue functioning to the benefit of all parties concerned.

In 1990, though, one of the biggest names among the membership decided to drop out of the CFA and go it alone. Notre Dame, with its national brand, withdrew from the CFA and negotiated an exclusive television deal with NBC. That deal, signed in 1991, paid out $38 million over five years.

With Notre Dame’s defection, irreparable cracks started forming in the CFA. In 1995, the SEC and Big East both withdrew from the group. By 1997, the CFA dissolved as conferences began negotiating their own contracts. At a time when conference membership has become so significant for most programs’ survival, it is worth noting that it was college football’s preeminent independent that kick-started the shift.

85. Waynesburg and Fordham Inaugurate Television Era (1939)

In any other context, the game between Fordham and Waynesburg in 1939 would be a mere footnote in college football history. Though they were a preseason favorite for national title contention, Fordham went on to finish the season 6-2-1 and out of the running for the big prize. Waynesburg also went 6-2-1 that year, which proved one of the finest in school history.

But television technology was still in its commercial infancy in the late 1930s, and NBC used the contest at Triborough Stadium as a way to advertise the potential of the new medium at the 1939 World’s Fair. Fans at the RCA/NBC Pavilion, as well as anyone owning one of around one thousand television sets in the New York area at the time, had the ability to watch the game unfold in real-time.

Thousands outside the stadium had the opportunity to see Waynesburg take an early lead just three plays into the game on a 63-yard touchdown run by Bobby Brooks. They listened to pioneering sports broadcaster Bill Stern call the action as the Rams quickly regrouped and asserted their dominance in a runaway 34-7 victory. The result itself was of little import for the 1939 season, but the contest had far broader implications in the marriage between college football and television broadcasting.