SPORTS ON THE AIR

One of the leading radio manufacturers has just issued an appeal through the newspapers urging the public to protest against the plan to prohibit broadcasting of professional boxing matches and baseball games, which is being seriously considered by the magnates of these sports. Apart from the loss of enjoyment to thousands of people who could not possibly attend the games in person, such a course reveals an uneasiness in the minds of the promoters that seems strangely inconsistent with the reports of clamorous demands for seats at the coming World's Series and of a very gratifying gate at a fight between contenders of far from championship calibre. Ordinary business policy should warn them of the risk of antagonizing numbers of potential fans vastly greater than the relatively few who might be kept away from any one event by the possibility of hearing it on the radio, and if they are driven to such desperate resorts to bolster up their attendance it can only be because the more usual means have failed.

The radio industry will not be the one to suffer the most if the proposed restrictions are put into effect. The radio has too many other uses and has become too integral a part of the life of the country to be displaced because one of its fields of activity is barred. If listeners-in cannot hear the broadcasting of a big-league game, instead of selling their sets and going to see the game they will tune in on the amateur tennis or polo match which the broadcasters will substitute. There would be loss all around, for at present during a large part of the year amateur sports have neither the facilities nor often the desire to accommodate large number of people and if they made arrangements to do so it would be with results only detrimental to themselves. Professional sports have a useful role to play in supplying entertainment not otherwise available to many and it would be fatally short-sighted on the part of their leaders to put a ban on one of the most effective means of publicity they possess.