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The Question Of Football Receipts

The Question Of Football Receipts image
Parent Issue
Day
13
Month
November
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The system of admission to the most important football games of the season has been open to vigorous adverse criticism for many years. Football is not only a sport but an imposing financial machine, whose receipts and expenditures at the leading universities rival that of many extensive business concerns. When $40,000 or $50,000 is taken in as admission money for one game, the profits, by their magnitude, most unpleasantly overshadow the "sport for sport's sake" spirit, and the public has room for complaint in more ways than one. It is true that the expenses of manufacturing a championship eleven are also enormous, and that the large surplus remaining at the end of the season is used to maintain other branches of competitive sport which are not self-supporting. 

But it is a system all wrong, accepted because custom has made it seem a matter of course. It is wrong because the prices charged for tickets are extravagantly and absurdly high, and are fixed, not by the student sentiment, but by the demands of the outside public, which has the money to pay for its amusements. But hundreds of students cannot afford to see their own university team play its important games, even on the home field. It is true that many thousands of graduates and others would pay even five dollars a seat to see these great contests, but that is no reason why the undergraduate should be compelled to "stand and deliver" for the privilege of seeing his fellow students engage in a branch of sport which is supposed to be organized and maintained for their benefit.

When it comes to making the players and coaches pay the exorbitant prices for their ticket, the fiscal system suggests too much the operation of a "get-rich-quick" syndicate. if college sports cannot be carried on without such heaping treasuries for their expenses, it is time to overhaul the systems and see where reductions can be made. if the admission fee to a reserved seat for undergraduates were made one dollar, and the rate for the rest of the patronage maintained at its present altitude, a beginning would be made in the right direction. - Illustrated Sporting News.

The President and Secretary of State john Hay are making history rapidly these days. They were very prompt, if not too prompt, in recognizing Panama as a new state. They would not have been nearly so prompt of course, if Colombia was big enough to take her part in a knockdown fight over the matter, treaty obligation or no treaty obligation. Of course the very fact that Colombia is small and weak is regarded as indicative of incompetency and need of a guardian. our treaty with New Granada - no Colombia - requires us to guarantee the integrity of the Colombian territory, as well as to keep the Panama railroad in operation, but we are hearing little of this side of the treaty at present. Of course, from our point of view, Colombia acted very foolishly in rejecting the canal treaty and possibly venally. She may be and probably is, an incompetent, and the great canal undertaking destined to be such a great advantage to the world possibly ought not to be permitted to be delayed by such a so-called nation. But we as a nation should not permit ourselves to be deceived as to just what the reasons are for our action. We ought to be entirely frank with ourselves, because the other nations will not be deceived anyway. The fact is the American people demand that canal and they propose to have it and the administration is taking the necessary steps to put the project ahead without farther delay. The abstract right or wrong of our position has little to do with our action;. It is now proposed to construct the canal because we want it, have the power to enforce our wishes and Colombia cannot help herself. It is not our treaty obligations that we are tender about. Those would be easily gotten along with if Columbia were a Russia. the interests of the world will be advanced no doubt by the United States going ahead in the cause she has entered upon. This fact, together with her power to do her will in the matter, makes a pretty strong combination.