Why Am I Sitting Here?

When the coin is tossed at the start of today's Game, Harvard's Phillip Carret will be at mid-field facing the Yale captains.

Carret?--A last-minute replacement for Harvard Captain Robb Hirsch?

No, Carret--a member of the Class of '17--has earned the right to the best seats at the 109th Game by being the most senior Harvard alumnus in attendance.

Facing Carret on the Eli side of the 50-yard line will be members of Yale's Class of '27.

Flanking both men will be thousands of Harvard and Yale students past and present, with today's Harvard undergraduates banished to the nether regions of the Stadium.

Ed Carey, Harvard athletic ticket manager, estimates that alumni have purchased around 15,000 tickets for The Game, while more than 5100 tickets have been sold to undergraduates at Harvard.

Those totals, however, will fall short of filling the 30,898 seats in The Stadium unless Yale can supply almost 11,000 rooters for the Bulldogs.

According to Yale's Athletic Ticket Manager Wayne Dean, only 6500 tickets have been sold at Yale, including 1500 since Monday to undergraduates.

Although tickets will continue to be sold for $25 until game time, no one believes that a sellout is possible.

"Sell out? Absolutely not," Carey said in an interview last week. "I'd be very surprised. I'd be happily surprised."

Fran Toland, associate athletic director at Harvard, said the last time The Stadium was truly packed may have been in 1968 when Harvard beat Yale, 29-29.

"If you listen to everyone who said they were there, we had 100,000 people attending," he said.

Toland says that attendance has sharply declined since 1981, when The Game at the Yale Bowl was witnessed by about 70,000 fans.

Last year's Game in New Haven, which Yale narrowly won, 23-13, drew 40,091 fans.

Ticket prices have increased by $10 in the last decade, but Toland said that is not the main factor for the decline in attendance.

"The luster that surrounds The Game is no longer there. It is no longer a Yale social event," he said. "Most Division I-AA teams have seen a decrease in attendance."

Despite that decline, The Game still promises to be a significant money-raiser for the Athletic Department. Officials, however, would not predict what the gate receipts will be.

"I don't think we publish that," said one department representative.

Toland, who handles many of the department's business operations, would not estimate the total revenue from The Game, which includes program sales, concession profits and ticket sales.

Toland also declined to disclose what percentage of the concession Harvard receives from the vendors.

"You can figure it out for yourself," he said.

According to figures obtained by The Crimson, ticket sales will total approximately $437,000.

As visiting team, Yale is entitled to 40 percent of the sales, or $175,000, leaving Harvard with more than $262,000, excluding concessions.

Toland said all of the money gained from The Game flows back into the budget of the athletic department.

According to Carey, whether The Game makes a profit or not, this year's game will continue a new tradition.

"We haven't had a sell-out for years."