KOPLAR FAMILY

MEDIA

Owners: KPLR-TV
Born:July 22, 1983; Las Vegas, Nevada
Signed on Air: April 28, 1959
Broadcast:St. Louis Cardinals, Wrestling at the Chase, St. Louis Hawks, St. Louis Blues

By Ed Wheatley

Within St. Louis’ checkered history, there have been many families whose contributions and legacies have left their mark on the Gateway City.  These family names became synonymous with St. Louis.  The mere mention of the family name and their brands anywhere across the nation would lead people’s thoughts straight to St. Louis.

The Busch family and their multi-generations of leadership owning both the brewery and the St. Louis Cardinals led the way to global recognition for them and St. Louis. The Danforth name that established Ralston Purina’s world-wide empire also evolved into leadership positions at Washington University and the United States Senate. But it was the Koplar family that impacted St. Louis’ love of sports. Their actions became a cornerstone for what many say is the “best sports town in America.” Their legacy goes well beyond buildings, symphony halls, and posh hotels. They never owned a team or won a World Championship. They simply built a hotel and a television station.

In the early 1920s, Sam Koplar was the man behind much of the construction within the city’s West End.  He built what is today called Powell Hall and the Chase Park Plaza hotel. Their sports legacy came under Sam’s son Harold (“HK”) and his son Ted during a time when people began watching that newfangled thing called television. When the Koplar’s launched their independent television station called KPLR, it was only fourth to air across the region.

At a time when sitcoms dominated the airwaves, HK had an inkling that St. Louisans would be drawn to live sports. KPLR signed on the air on April 28, 1959, with a prime time broadcast of the Cardinals versus the Reds, the first of 40 games that season. But it didn’t stop with MLB. In its early years, KPLR regularly presented professional basketball and football, college football, St. Louis-area high school football, bowling, Khoury League baseball, and even jai alai!

There were also those special Saturday evening fan favorite sports shows that became “must see TV” long before NBC coined the phrase in the 1990s. One might also say St. Louis had the original version of Saturday Night Live with roller derby and wrestling (even though it had been taped earlier, viewers still thought it was live each Saturday night). Concepted by HK alongside legendary promoter Sam Muchnick, “Wrestling at the Chase” was so popular that it was re-aired on Sunday mornings. More importantly, it changed the image of the sport with fans “dressed to the nines” sitting ringside in the Koplar’s elegant Khorasan Room of the Chase Hotel. Daily afternoon trips down the Mississippi on Captain Eleven’s Showboat with The Three Stooges only added to this growing viewership that quickly made KPLR the number one independent television station in America.

HK’s son Ted became CEO of KPLR in 1979, having worked his way up producing sports programming like Blues hockey. Ted redoubled KPLR’s focus on live sports, transforming the station into what could be considered an early day ESPN. Following the baseball and football Cardinals, basketball Hawks, hockey Blues, and soccer Stars, allowed St. Louisans access to more of their hometown teams’ games beyond the lone national game of the week. What would St. Louis fans have become without KPLR’s decades of local sports broadcasting? Would we have loved our heroes in the same way?  Would we have the memories of watching sports’ special moments? Were KPLR’s regular airings key to making St. Louis sports fans the best in the country? The likely answer is yes and it’s for these contributions to the world of St. Louis sports that the Koplar family shall be inducted into the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame.