Yale Game TV For Next Fall Turned Down

The University has definitely rejected a National Collegiate Athletic Association offer to televise the 1954 Harvard-Yale football game nationally, Dean Bundy announced yesterday.

The ruling was in keeping with the now administration's announced policy of opposition to the NCAA's nationwide TV policy.

The Association's bid for the game--which is certain to be a sellout--carried with it a financial offer of $30,000. In addition, the national hookup would have made the game available to alumni across the nation.

Previously, the Administration stated that while it retained Provost Buck's opposition to the NCAA television plan, it has received no specific offer.

Anti-Trust Danger

Harvard's stand against the NCAA, along with a desire to make such decisions on television independently of such a large body, stoms mainly from advice of its lawyers that the Association's TV rulings may be against anti-trust laws.

When the University, under Provost Buck, broke with the Association in May 1953, it stated "Harvard intends not to be bound by any program restricting its right to decide independently when and to what extent it will televise athletic sports." Shortly afterwards Yale also followed this action for similar reasons.

Thus the Association's offer to televise this year's Yale game was viewed partly as an attempt to buy off Harvard and Yale resistance at a time when the two colleges are leading opposition to the NCAA's TV policy.

There has been increasing discontent with the "big-time" aspects of this policy, one of the biggest commercial aspects of collegiate sports. This has spread to the Big Ten, as well as the Ivy Group. It is expected that the NCAA will receive a figure close to last year's $4,000,000 for sponsorship rights to the football series.