The College Football Association Television Broadcast Cartel

• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X0404900309
• Author: Molly Gardner Burba,John J. Siegfried
• Published date: 01 September 2004
• Date: 01 September 2004
• Subject Matter: Article

The Antitrust Bulletin/Fall 2004

The College Football Association

television broadcast cartel

BY JOHN J. SIEGFRIED* and MOLLY GARDNER BURBA **

I.

Introduction

799

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was organized

in 1905 to control game violence in college football. After World War

Il,

the

NCAA's

activities

expanded

into

economic

regulation.

including the control

of

athletic scholarships and the sale of television

broadcast rights for college football games.' Contracts negotiated by

the

NCAA

as

the

exclusive

selling

agent

for

college

football

television broadcast rights provided the foundation for the growth in

revenues

of

college and university athletic departments from 1951

through 1984.

*Professor of Economics. Vanderbilt University, Nashville. Tennessee.

** Associate

of

the Private Investment Banking Company LLC. New

York. New York.

AUTHORS' NOTE: This account

of

the College Football Association would

not have been

possible

without

the

generous

assistance

of

Charles

Neinas, former Executive Director

of

the College Football Association.

and Roy Kramer. former Commmissioner

of

the Southeastern Confer-

ence, each

of

whom provided us with two extended interviews. Christo-

pher

Klein, George Sweeney,

and

Andrew

Zimbalist provided useful

comments on an earlier draft.

N.C.A.A. v. Board

of

Regents

of

University

of

Oklahoma. 104 S.

Ct. 2948. 2953-54 ( 1984).

() 2004 by Federal Legal Publications, Inc.

800

The antitrust bulletin

II. The NCAA enters college football

television broadcasting

The first live college football game was broadcast in 1938, albeit

to only six viewers." As the number

of

households with television

receivers

expanded

in

the

late

1940s,

individual

universities

increasingly arranged to televise their games.' These individually

negotiated broadcast arrangements inevitably led to conflict among

NCAA members.

Several

universities

contended

that

when

games

of

other

institutions were broadcast into their home territory during one of

their games, potential gate receipts evaporated because fans passed up

opportunities

to

attend

the

live

contest

in

favor

of

a

Saturday

afternoon sitting in an

easy

chair

watching agame on their new

television receiver. To address the controversy, in 1950 the NCAA

commissioned

the National Opinion Research Center

(NaRC)

to

investigate the extent to which televised games competed directly

with live attendance at other games. The

NaRC

report found that live

game

attendance declined by 10% in areas where at least 30%

of

homes owned televisions, while attendance actually increased by

about 10% in areas where fewer than 5%

of

homes had televisions.' In

the

aftermath

of

this

report,

the

NCAA's

television

committee

concluded that televising college football games into areas where

other games were played was detrimental to live attendance and gate

receipts, and recommended amoratorium on live broadcasts.'

At its 1951

convention,

the

NCAA

revoked its

then

existing

policy allowing each individual institution complete control over the

marketing

of

its

athletic

events,

afirst

step

toward

prohibiting

broadcasts into areas where another Association member was hosting

a game. When the University

of

Pennsylvania challenged the NCAA's

[d. at 2954.

ANDREW

ZIMBALlST,

UNPAID

PROFESSIONALS: COMMERCIALISM AND

CONFLICT IN

BIG-TIME

COLLEGE SPORTS 91 (1999).

~

Id. at 93.

N.C.A.A .. 104S. Ct. at 2954.