DWINDLING GATE RECEIPTS

John R. Tunis '11, sports writer and author of a recent book entitled "Sports," writing in this month's Atlantic Monthly, airs the subject of the decline of interest in football and comes to the conclusion that "Football's Day is done." The Boston Herald, in an editorial printed elsewhere on this page, attributes the apparent lack of interest in the sport this fall to the effects of the depression rather than to the beginning of the end of football. It declares that, were the price of admission to the college football game less forbidding, there would be the same crowds as heretofore.

A survey of the situation at various colleges reveals that the answer to the decline in attendance at football games lies somewhere in between these two views. It seems a far cry to say that interest is falling so rapidly that the end of football is near at hand, but yet it is also hard to explain the great drop in gate receipts this year solely on the grounds of depression or even very largely on these grounds. Athletic associations all over the country report much greater drops in attendance this year over that of last year than were noted in the attendance last year over that of two years ago, and the receipts of all three years were influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the depression. Accordingly, it is reasonable to suppose that decline in interest in the sport is in some measure responsible for dwindling gate receipts of the last few years as well as the depression.