TIM MAGUIRE

On April 11, 1921, KDKA in Pittsburgh aired the first live sporting
event on the radio, a boxing match between Johnny Ray and
Johnny Dundee.

Pittsburgh Daily Post sports editor Florent Gibson calls the event,
about four months before KDKA’s Harold Arlin announces the
first Major League Baseball game broadcast on radio.

The lightweight bout pitted Dundee, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991, against Ray, who
would later train and manage famed boxer Billy Conn.

In the early part of the 20th century, radio had been used primarily
for two-way communication.

The medium’s popularity took a nosedive during World War I,
when the U.S. military took over all airwaves.