HAA Announces Boost In Football Ticket Cost

Crimson football fans, expecting a price cut because of the recent repeal of the excise tax on intercollegiate athletic tickets, received a jolt yesterday when the H.A.A. announced a boost for the 1954 season. Rates will rise across the board, with increases varying from 20 to 50 cents.

Tickets for the Yale game will go up from $4.80 to $5, while the other three league contests will cost $4--40 cents more than last year. Prices for the two non-conference games will be $2.50 instead of $2. All general admission rates will rise 50 cents except for the Dartmouth and Brown weekends, which will see only 20 cent boosts.

The price increases, plus the saving of the 20 percent excise tax, will bring needed revenue to the H.A.A., which reported deficits of $456,000 and $466,000 during the past two fiscal years.

Ivy League Prices

While giving this explanation, H.A.A. Business Manager Carroll F. Getchell added that the new scale would probably be "more or less" standard throughout the League. Officials from Ivy schools discussed football ticket rates in March, but no binding agreements were made, according to Getchell.

Yale announced on April 7 that next year's Princeton game prices would rise from $4.80 to $5, as will Harvard game tickets during the 1955 season. The New Haven school held the line, however, on all other games; there will be neither a cut, because of the tax repeal, nor an increase. Yale's prices for Cornell, Dartmouth, and Army contests will continue at $4, while the Brown and Colgate Eli rates will remain at $3.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah Ford II, the director of intercollegiate athletics at Pennsylvania, was reported as planning to keep the status quo despite agitation for a cut from the present price of $3.90.

As for sports other than football, neither Getchell nor any other Ivy business manager has reached a decision on possible increases or decreases for the 1954-55 seasons.