I have seen roughly 4 WWF Laserdiscs for sale including Hulkamania, Wrestlemania, Best of the WWF Vol 1, and Bloopers Bleeps and Bodyslams all at high prices,
and I have some Football and Olympic Laserdiscs, but have come to wonder why there hasn't been more.
What sports I have seen on laserdisc have been amazing. I would love to have a collection of the Wrestlemainas on Laserdisc

LD was a format for movie (film) lovers and people, (adults) with money. The WWF is better for selling action figures or Presto Magix or fruit roll ups or something else more budget friendly. I’d wager most NFL fans who owned LD players were team owners. There wouldn’t have been too many. A sports maniacs main format is always going to be live TV.

Also both NFL and WWF had considerable VHS markets that were very strong. When you’re in a market to make money you don’t just go “OK, I’ll put my album on out 8 track to be cool!”, you put it out in the format that people are already buying similar things in.

Don’t ever forget, “retro collecting” is newer than the things you’re collecting. None of the economies are the same anymore.

VHS was definitely king for the sports market, and for a good reason: it was the format you could record an entire live game on while you were out. Tons of sports fans owned a VCR for that reason alone; being a sports fan was more likely to make you buy a VCR than being a film person was to make you buy an LD player. So for the odd pre-recorded sports content like blooper reels, greatest-moments collections, and World Series films, it was always going to be VHS first.

There does appear to be one World Series film on LD: 1986 (a classic! (if you're not from Boston)). Seems they tried it once and the sales didn't convince them to try it again.

Now, one sports non-fiction title that I would have been surprised if it weren't on LD given its pedigree is Ken Burns's Baseball (1994) [ID8599TU], and sure enough they released it on 10 honking discs. (CLV, at that. It's long).

The best World Series since 1969. #LFGM

I would love that 1986 Laserdisc. It's been on my wishlist forever. I have a couple of NPB discs though, those are great. Inject as much baseball in to my soul as possible. I'll watch it all!

Ken Burn's Baseball is an incredible piece of work by the way. I watched that all on PBS in HD via their streaming service a while back. It's brilliant even if you don't like baseball so much.

Does anyone know if there are any Knicks Laserdiscs? I'd love some 80's Ewing era stuff. God bless the Knicks for getting a good start this season too by the way.

Side note; anyone but the cheating Astro's tonight please. I shall be banging my trashcan for the Braves tonight from across the Atlantic! Braves representing the NL East hooray!

This is one of the best wresting laserdiscs available:
Thunder & Mud (1989) [90596]

I'm all Nats, but I give Mets teams of that era a pass because my guys were still in Montreal then, and because the Mets aren't the Yankees, and because Davey Johnson.

Baseball and Baseball are both the best. Fun story: I got Ken Burns's autograph at Stephen Strasburg's major league debut. Today it resides inside the cover of my parents' copy of the book adaptation of Baseball.

I... just want both teams to lose. It definitely feels less gross for Freddie Freeman to get a ring than for Alex Bregman to get another one, but I know more Braves fans than Astros fans in general. The calculus shifted in my head a bit toward the (despicable) Astros for tonight at least because the Braves blew their shot at clinching in Game 5 after that first-inning grand slam. If you clinch in Game 6 after losing a Game 5 like that, it just weakens the narrative arc of the series. If a team up 3-1 loses Game 5, the only satisfying end is for it to be decided in 7.

"NPB discs" sounds really interesting! I've been to one NPB game in person: Hanshin Tigers v. Yakult Swallows, Koshien Stadium. One of the best sports experiences I've ever had; Japanese baseball crowds are the real deal, and Koshien's a gem.

You could also say more simply that LD is kind of a smart guy’s thing and NFL/WWF are as dumb as a bag of hammers. In the 80s a football player/fan was more likely to beat you up for owning an LD player than to ask for buying advice on one.

Anyone but the Astro's. Every time Altuve does something positive I vomit in my mouth. That bunch of cheats didn't even apologise or hand their rings back. Disgraceful.

Hopefully Cohen has a busy hot stove pumping his billions in to the Mets and the team gets a good Spring Training ready to try and not capitulate again after the All Star break! I've been to New York more times than I've had hot dinners but have yet to see the Mets.

I did go to MLB London though in 2019. I went head to toe in Mets stuff. The Yankees fans on the Tube were very pleased to see me there! They didn't understand either why a non-American, non-New Yorker would cheer for the Mets by choice. I've liked watching baseball since around 1987/88. The Mets happened to be good then but it wasn't about gloryhunting it was just picking a team at random to follow. Same with my other favourites, the Knicks for NBA, Giants and Rams (except when they were cruelly exiled to St Louis) for NFL and the Sabres and Leafs for NHL.

II agree too, anyone but the Evil Empire as well!

That makes me realize, if LD had been a thing in Finland as a consumer format, it's quite possible my dad would've bought a player.

He might've not been able to actually tell the difference in the sound or picture quality, but who cares as long as it impressed the neighbours.

(YAWN.) I know more than enough smart NFL fans and have heard more than enough idiocy from long-time laserdisc enthusiasts to roll my eyes at this tired nerd-grievance junk. (To say nothing of the intelligence necessary to understand an NFL defense, much less implement it in real time against an NFL offense.)


Not surprising; the general consensus among American scientists is that Mets fandom is a genetically inherited condition.

The NFL is a club of the worst people on earth. “Nerd grievance” didn’t give us Micheal Vick’s dog fighting ring, OJ’s double murder, countless local economies destroyed by stadium schemes, uncountable gang rapes, unmarked graves, dragging deaths, and basically just hundreds of thousands of very crappy people allowed to do whatever they want as long as they can throw a stupid ball in what is THE slowest most boring sport ever created.

I can’t wait until it’s only legal in Vegas but considering how many terrible parents are still willing to feed their kids onto the football meat grinder it may be a while. Recruitment is down but somehow not zero.

Someone I know, sorta…it’s a football family…even though his old best friend killed himself from the head trauma (that the smart guys at the NFL tried to hide) they are still sending their kid into the game with big dumb college hopes. It’s not a game its a social plague. Neither parent is actually low IQ but this is DUMB behavior unless totally deranged.

Loyalty is the worst human trait when it’s loyalty to something totally inhumane. You have to REALLY look the other way to excuse the NFL. Total moral abdication may be needed.

Yesterday went well...

As if to prove signofzeta's point, another drunken NFL thug killed someone in another car in a crash while driving at 156MPH recently after signing a contract worth megabux.

Another player for the same team was seen waving around an automatic weapon recently..

As far the the OP, the short answer is because they were put out on VHS and were not worth putting out on LD in comparison. VHS was the more common format by far so it made sense to only release on that. ETA: I saw Zeta already mentioned this after reading more. But yeah this is why.

NJPW put some LD sets out but they seem to be hard to find

WWF is sport?
ROFL my arse off.
Surely at the very kindest 'physical performance theatre'?

Hi teddanson,

You asked about New York Knicks titles on laserdisc. As far as I can determine, there's only one title ever released on the format. It is NBA: New York's Game - History of the Knicks (1989) [SRLM 882]. There are many NBA titles which were released, but only a few were in the USA, mostly the Michael Jordan titles, and a couple on Magic Johnson. The rest are Japan only releases, including the one I referenced on the Knicks. I was fortunate enough to acquire it quite a few years ago, along with a dozen or more of the others, all from a single seller. I updated all of them here soon after I received them, as most of them were missing much of the information from the listing pages, and a few were not listed here at all. I've been trying to get all of the Japan only titles one by one as they appear for sale, which is not very often. I'm not sure how rare the New York Knicks title is, but it appears that I am the only one here who owns it, which seems quite remarkable! At any rate, if you're looking for Knicks titles on laserdisc, that would be the only one to look for!

Best Regards,
David

Is that Ewing-era Knicks? Ewing is a legend!

I like sports, mostly NFL and NBA. I also like movies. Unfortunately, there are bad people in all professions. For every OJ Simpson there is a Robert Blake; for every Kellen Winslow II there is a Bill Cosby; for every Henry Ruggs III there is an Alec Baldwin. I tend to not want to hear anything personal about celebrities or athletes because I'm bound to be disappointed. There has only been one perfect man ever, Jesus Christ, so it's not worth getting caught up in the lives of so-called famous people that are nothing in comparison.

One thing I do not care for is sports movies. They are the worst! I don't care for wrestling either, sorry.

I wonder if people that hate sports understand the rules, though. Most people like games, afterall. There really aren't a lot of football laserdiscs I would recommend but "How to Watch Pro Football" is not bad. It's a little dated but is a good explanation of the basic strategy. Football is kind of like battle chess with strategic moves of players as well as one-on-one competitions. It's really interesting once you understand the basics.

Hi teddanson,

The Knicks disc I mentioned previously is a program from 1989, so it would only touch on the beginning of Patrick Ewing's NBA career. However, you'll be happy to know that there is also a Japan only release which is specifically about Patrick Ewing , not just the Knicks in general! The title is NBA: Patrick Ewing - Standing Tall (1993) [SRLM 881]. Since it is a later program from 1993, it would go further into some later years of his career. Oddly enough, I seem to be also the only one here who owns that title! I didn't get it from the same seller I got the Knicks title and many of the others from years ago. I got it much more recently, probably a couple of years ago, from a seller in Singapore, believe it or not! What he was doing with a Japanese NBA disc on Patrick Ewing, I have no idea. I was just glad that he had it for sale, as I have never seen anyone else offer it, before or since! Well, I suppose that gives you one more to start looking for!

Best Regards,
David