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KTVU also helped popularize Roller Derby, a highly physical competition featuring separate men's and women's teams of speed skaters on a circular track.

If you need a refresher course on the rules, we've provided them here in their entirety.

The sport was born in Chicago during the Depression, but didn't achieve national prominence until the advent of television in the late '40s. In 1949, the National Roller Derby League was formed, and the playoffs for that season sold out New York's Madison Square Gardens for the entire week.

The Bay Bombers was an expansion team, created in 1954. The Bay Bombers aggressiveness and determination made stars of such team members as Charlie O'Connell, Tony Roman and his player-wife Carol "Peanuts" Myers, Alice "Big Red" Jensen, Ann Calvello and her purple hair, and Joanie Weston, a.k.a. "The Blonde Bomber" (or "Blonde Amazon" depending on who you talk to) and her player-husband Nick Scopas. Weston died in May 1997 of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, a rare brain disease. She was 62.

Roller Derby had been carried on KGO, but wasn't popular. KTVU eagerly took over the broadcasts a few months after going on the air, and with proper promotion, had a hit show. The Saturday morning telecasts, narrated by KTVU announcer Walt Harris, began July 12, 1958 from the Oakland Exposition building. Harris helped modify some of the rules of the game, to make it more telegenic. For example, "jammers" were made more identifiable with striped helmets.

Roller Derby was a crowd pleaser and a ratings success for KTVU. In later years, the station televised competitions staged at Kezar Pavillion, championship events at the Cow Palace, and July 4th extravaganzas at the Oakland Coliseum (photo at right). In the early years, Roller Derby even outdrew the fledgling Oakland Raiders, who played at Frank Youell Field alongside the Nimitz Freeway (now the site of Laney College.)

The league was dissolved in 1973 by owner Jerry Seltzer. Seltzer went on to start the Bass Tickets operation.