Grandmaster vs. "The World". Any pre-internet examples?

I'm sure you all know about those X vs. "The World" exhibitions, the most famous of which was Kasparov vs. The World in 1999.

Does anyone know whether these sorts of exhibitions existed before the internet was popularized in the mid to late 1990's?

The concept of chess played between one man versus a mass of people probably existed before the 1990's, but are there any examples of such?  

What was the largest number of participants such a match attracted before the explosion of the internet?  

I am sure that holding a "The World" match via telegram or long distance telephone would have been quite costly.

I looked for quite a while online and couldn't come up with anything.

I feel quite sure that there had to be, probably sponsored by a newspaper, with a week per move and total dependence on snail mail, but I couldn't find anything.

Do you still feel this way?

Thanks for looking!  

I guess simuls would be the closest to GMs vs. "The World" type games. Those are played with multiple boards though. You can only crowd so many people around a single board.

A simul is a simul brah.  I'm talking about "The World" brah.

The world, chico.  And everything in it...

You're talking about pre-internet though. A simul is much easier to do OTB than a vote chess type game.

I don't know any specific examples but they did do this kind of thing with radios.

Like CB radios?  Breaker!  Breaker!  Comin' back at ya on the flip flop, Good Buddy, That'll be Knight to Bishop Three, Come on!

I'm not talking about simuls brah.  A simul is easier to do than an around-the-world solo boat trip too.

What i'm saying is given the option a simul would be preferred. It could be a reason why there wouldn't be any pre-internet world challenges over a single board.

Oh!  Someone was talking about using radios.

I have no idea how it would be done over the radio. A telephone makes more sense, but the problem would be cost. Aren't CB radios short ranged?