Most Influential Sports Figure

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So you want to know who the most influential sports figure in American history is? I’ll tell you; it’s me, Rupert Murdoch. Others may argue that Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, or other athletes may have had a big push on U.S. sports, but that isn’t the case. With my owning one of the most storied franchises in major league baseball, and more importantly, with my endless access to media outlets and televised sports, I am the most influential person in U.S. sports history. For much of the 1990’s, I was the sole owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers have long been renowned for being one of the most famous franchises in all of baseball, if not all of sports. Originally from Brooklyn, they employed Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier, as well as countless other all stars and hall of fame players. Also, with Los Angeles playing in the biggest city in the most populated state in the country, the baseball team I owned had a larger viewing audience on a daily basis that any other team in American sports. The biggest reason that I am the most influential, however, is my endless array of media outlets. I own newspapers and television stations around the world, but one of my largest assets is the Fox News Corporation. Fox has had a stranglehold on sports broadcasting since the mid 1980’s, and there is no foreseeable reason for that to change. My exploits to take over broadcasting of the NFL, the most popular sport in America today, was the single biggest sports movement of the 80’s. As I was quoted in 1993, shortly after aquiring the rights to televise all NFC games on Fox, leaving CBS, NBC, and ABC to scramble for the leftovers, “We're a network now. Like no other sport will do, the NFL will make us into a real network. In the future there will be 400 or 500 channels on cable, and ratings will be fragmented. But football on Sunday will have the

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