Hall Discloses New Plan for TV Football

A share-the-wealth proposal to save college football from losing its ability to pack--or even half-fill--the stadia of strictly amateur colleges, was proposed by Yale Athletic Director Robert A. Hall last night. Hall based his radical plan on the results of the extensive survey conducted last fall at many games--including the Harvard-Dartmouth one--and sponsored by the NCAA.

The survey, soon to be made public, showed conclusively that TV has had a deadly effect on football gate receipts. Therefore, says Hall. "If the colleges do not now establish a principle of sharing the receipts of televised football, a financial premium on winning teams will be created that will kill amateur football."

Plan Outlined

The preliminary results of the survey demonstrated that games played outside the range of television consistently outdrew those played in areas where TV was available.

Hall, who is chairman of the NCAA committee investigating television, revealed that his committee has formed a plan for the coming football season which would end the TV "black-outs" of last fall but at the same time permit smaller and less powerful teams to survive.

"In the place of receipts from pay-as-you-go TV, sponsors will pay a fee for the rights to the colleges whose games they televise," said Hall. "This fee should run to about a million dollars for the season. Our committee then proposed that there be a token distribution of these proceeds to all football-playing NCAA members."

Eventually, Hall believes, TV owners will pay about a dollar to see the game of the week each Saturday. Not more than 20 teams throughout the nation will be involved in these games, he predicts, and receipts, both from the pay-as-you-see owners and the sponsors, will amount to over $10 million a season.