The First Instant Replay Was on the Patterson Johanssen Fight by Jay Merkle

Self generated Hollywood folklore says that Tony Verna 'invented' the Instant Replay on an Army Navy telecast in 1963. In reality, the first instant replay was done in 1961 by TelePrompTer, a New York based cable company that was telecasting the Patterson Johansson fight. TelePrompTer honcho Jay Merkle - who later founded the Sports Channel cable network (Now Fox Sports) and his staff came up with a way to use the newly introduced video tape in such a fashion that a play could be 'instantly' replayed.

The world was never the same, as sports fans from that day on could revisit the big plays right away.