While every Cleveland fans remembers the magical season of 1975-76 that saw the team reach the Eastern Conference Finals, few remember that very few of those contests were on local television. Local independent station WUAB had shown 18 road games (in which the team went 2-16) the year before, but chose not to renew its deal.
Despite building excitement, no other local station picked up the rights, which left fans listening to Joe Tait’s call of the team’s games on radio. The local move was magnified when CBS chose to drop coverage of the team’s December 21 home game against the Lakers because of the Cavaliers’ slow start, a snub which helped spur the team to success for the rest of the year.
The blackout finally ended on March 20, when the ABC affiliate, WEWS, aired a game from Atlanta. Two other regular season games followed, and the station then showed all non-network road games and the conference final home games during the bittersweet postseason.
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