Ivy Football Games Will Be Televised

At least one, and as many as four Harvard football games will be televised next fall as a result of a Supreme Court ruling this week allowing individual colleges and universities to make their own television contracts.

The Ivy League announced yesterday that it had signed a one-year contract with a New York-based television broker and a Boston production company to televise nine league football games on Saturdays beginning Sept. 22.

The games will be broadcast on public television (locally, Channel 2) through the Eastern Educational Network 1-4 p.m. on Saturdays.

On Wednesday the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) had violated anti-trust laws by requiring its 785 member colleges to abide by its exclusive contracts with CBS and ABC and not negotiate their own deals with the networks, local television stations or cable companies.

Negotiations Anticipated Court Ruling

Ivy League officials said they began negotiating the deal about a year and one half ago in anticipation of this week's ruling Under the old system athletic conferences in the NCAA divided a share of the organization's $68 million television contract based on the number of times a member school appeared on television.

The old system earned each Ivy League school between $75,000 and $100,000 per year, said Harvard Director of Athletics John P. Reardon Jr '60 Under the contract announced yesterday each school would receive approximately the same amount although it might be slightly lower, he added.

The entire project carries a $1 million price tag including rights to the games and production costs, said Greg Harney, president of Greg Harney Productions, which will produce the telecasts.

"Without yesterday's ruling this would not have been possible," said Harney "It's got all the earmarks of good, colorful, exciting foot ball without the rigidity of the platoon system used at the other schools," he added.

Under the agreement each Ivy League school will appear on television at least once during the season on television at least once during the season and may appear as many as four times, said Barry Frank, group vice president of Transworld International, which negotiated the deal for the league.

The first two telecasts will be announced August 1 and subsequent games will be chosen as the season progresses based on the relative importance of each week's games. The athletic directors of all eight Ivy League schools will have a conference telephone call each Monday to select the next televised game.

Harvard-Yale Game May Be Shown

Although it will depend on the teams records and standings at the time. Harney and others said they thought it was very likely that the Harvard Yale game would be televised.

The last time a Harvard football game was telecast was on Nov 6. 1982 when Harvard beat Holy Cross 24,17.

The directors could also decided to televise a non league game such as the Harvard-Army or Princeton Navy game if they so chose.

The games, shown on public television, will be broadcast without commercials, and according to Harney, his group would make no attempt to influence the schedule or change the time of a game to suit the telecast Nor will any of the games be blacked out in the home team's viewing area.

The Eastern Educational Network is a consortium of 48 public television stations in the Northeast To date, five affiliates--those in Boston, Hartford, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh--have committed themselves to showing the Ivy League Game of the Week, but Frank said he was confident all of the stations would sign on by the fall.

Frank added that his company was hoping to show the games on closed circuit television at Ivy League Clubs in cities not offering the telecasts.

Transworld International, which represented the Ivy League, is a recognized leader in the sports television industry. It represented the city of Calgary, Alberta in negotiations for rights to broadcast the 1968 Winter Olympics. The $309 million contract with ABC was the largest television sports contract ever signed. Transworld is currently representing Seoul, South Korea, which will host the 1968 Summer Olympics in similar negotiations.

Frank said that Trans world began working for the league about 18 months ago and considered a variety of network, local, cable, and pay-per-view options but chose the one which will show the games on public television "as the best for the interests of Ivy League football."

Since there are no commercials on public television the stations must secure corporate sponsors to air the telecasts. Project organizers say none have formally agreed to underwrite the telecasts, but said they expected to have the programs fully funded within a month.

The contract announced yesterday is for only one year but Frank said he hoped Ivy League games would continue to be televised indefinitely. "The idea was not to do it for one year and then pull out, that was never our intent," he said.

The Supreme Court ruling was on the appeal of a suit first filed in 1981 when the University of Georgia and University of Oklahoma sued the NCAA for the right to negotiate their own television agreements Lower courts had ruled in favor of the colleges twice but the NCAA had appeared the decision each time