STADIUM ECONOMICS

Mr. Bingham's exceedingly frank and clear-out statement of the inner details of Harvard's athletic budget provides an almost staggering yardstick measurement of the place of football on the credit side of the ledger. Football this year is estimated in the budget as costing the Association the round sum of $330,991, a figure slightly larger than that of the Harvard College library for the same period. Of course not all of this money is spent on supplies and wages alone. Nearly two thirds of the football expenditure goes as guarantees to the visiting teams. Subtract the guarantees from the original figure, and the more modest total of $113,000 remains as the sum necessary to equip, coach, and rub the squad. Football on Soldiers Field is distinctly a commercial proposition, a fact which may strike home among the many alumni and others who, while supporting the weekly institution, still cry out about high-priced tickets, and over-emphasis.

It cannot be denied that the exact figures of the case show football games as distinctly golden eggs in the H.A.A. basket. To decry this, moreover, is to overlook the fact that these profits go to support the many other athletics that have a place in the Harvard calendar. The chief fly in the gravy is the scale of prices which make attendance at football games so expensive for the average undergraduate or graduate student.

The price for the complete quota of games at the cheapest amounts to roughly $14. Many students cannot devote that much money for this kind of Saturday afternoon entertainment. Witness the 840 applicants for positions as ticket takers, where there were but 300 positions available. It is definitely hard, if not impossible for numbers of men to attend the Harvard football games. Possibly this is something to be thankful for. But the fact remains that the difference between the men who attend games and those who do not should be based on individual choice and not on financial considerations.

The total University enrollment this year is under 8000, of which certainly not all are anxious to spend Saturday afternoons in the Stadium. It should be entirely possible for the prices on Alumni tickets to be so fixed that the revenues would off-set the drop in return from members of the University were they to be admitted to all the games at a cost of $5. The answer of the Athletic Association is that for $12.50 the undergraduate obtains tickets to contests amounting to nearly five times that amount. It must be remembered here that it is football that most men are keenly interested to watch, with hockey possibly in second place. In almost every other sport men who are interested wish to be not spectators, but participants, if anything.

The trade in tickets outside the University members has borne up strongly under the rates charged during the last few years, as shown by the huge gate receipt figures. By skillful altering of the price on non-University tickets it would be possible to continue to make profits for other sports, and still admit members of the University for a much more feasible amount than is in effect at present. Professional football is to be seen for $1; one of Harvard's big games costs $4.40 to the unbooked students. Undergraduate interest in professional football can be expected to rise as economic conditions sweep it in in place of high-priced, gold mine Harvard football. This morning's figures serve as an estimate of the complications that modern sports entail in a large University. It is unfortunate that these conditions should serve to check the interest of those who should be primarily concerned,--the present members of the University itself.