Roger Harb and David Drews

Who Invented This Sport?

Sports EN ↓ 6 episodes

Who Invented This Sport? is a sports time machine invented by two lifelong friends who are obsessed with the origins of sports as diverse as basketball and bobsledding and beyond. Each episode, we travel back through time and share with you a particular sport’s sources and evolution. The heroes of these treasure hunts are the sports inventors, innovators, and pioneers. And since history is not only the past but also the present and future, we interview sports experts, who will discuss their sport’s yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The Who Invented This Sport? podcast spans the sports globe and...

Author

Roger Harb and David Drews

Episodes

Who Invented American Football? Part Four: Once upon a time at a cozy London pub . . . 20.11.2025 43:46

Who Invented This Sport? is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Sports Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY Writing of America’s independence from Britain, Barbara Holland wrote, “Our Revolution was born and raised in taverns.” So was true for arguably the most impactful sports revolution of all time.   In 1863, a monumental meeting takes place to form a football league bon...

Who Invented the Hammer Throw? 12.09.2025 52:37

Who Invented This Sport? is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Sports Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY It looks like a mace, but the implement used for the sport of hammer throwing is not a decedent of medieval weaponry. In fact, hammer throwing athletes didn’t begin hurling a 16-pound iron ball attached to a wire that is attached to a handle until the beginning of the 1900s.&nb...

Who Invented American Football? Part Three: Kicking Cousins–Anglo and American Football Ties 20.03.2025 21:28

Who Invented This Sport? is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Sports Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY You’re a freshman at Harvard in 1827. It’s Bloody Monday. You’re out on the commons field and the upperclassmen bellow a chant: “Football, Freshie—Football, Freshie,” and before you and your fellow first-year classmates know it, you are all standing on a field, pitted against a...

Who Invented American Football? Part Two: Victorian Football: From Mob Rule to Class Rule 13.03.2025 29:26

Who Invented This Sport? is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Sports Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY Two goal lines are set hundreds of yards to a mile apart on city streets or across village greens throughout the U.K. Soon blood will puddle on the former and soak the latter.  Up to a hundred a side batter, sometimes maiming and even killing each other, fighting to g...

Who Invented American Football? Part One: From Elegant Ancient Chinese Footballers to the United Kingdom’s Crude Rabble. 07.03.2025 17:37

Who Invented This Sport? is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Sports Yesteryear . EPISODE ONE SUMMARY Are you ready for some football! Football history that is! Who would have ever imagined that American football can trace its origins to ancient China and Greece? Travel with us From Elegant Ancient Chinese Football to the United Kingdom's Crude Rabble—our premier episode an...

SHN Presents: Who Invented This Sport? 23.07.2024 5:00

Who Invented This Sport? is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters for Sports Yesteryear . WHO INVENTED THIS SPORT? BACKGROUND Who Invented This Sport? is a sports time machine invented by two lifelong friends who are obsessed with the origins of sports as diverse as basketball and bobsledding and beyond. Each episode, we travel back through time and share with you a particular spor...