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Penn Goes Against NCAAs Video Ban Urges Association to Hold Off Action Until Next Year And Reconsider Proposals PHILADELPHIA, Pa., June 6 UP.— The University of Pennsylvania, a pioneer in televising football games, announced today it will not "combine in a ban on television" of 1951 intercollegiate football games proposed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The university, a football power of the nation, pointed out that its stand was "not defiance." It urged the NCAA to call a special meeting or postpone the proposed ban for a year "so that we may move reconsideration." - "It is our conclusion that it would be a serious mistake to ban television this year," Penn athletic director Francis T. Murray said in a letter to NCAA president Dr. Hugh C. Willett of the University of Southern Califonia, Los Angeles. Penn cited seven reasons why it did not think the plan now under consideration by television committee of the NC99 was wise. They are: 1. ". . . The constitution of the NCAA does not give the authority to the organization to exercise the centralized, complete control over the member institutions which is now propsed." 2. It would be a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act "if we were to join in a nationwide ban for control of television of college athletic contests." 3. "We are convinced that the majority of the members of the NCAA are how opposed to the banning program . ■-. ." Dallas Action Hasty 4. The action of the NCAA last January at Dallas recommending the ban was "hasty" and that the NCAA television com-mitee has been unable "to implement its own- experimental plan.? 5. Experience at the university has shown that the televising of football games did not "adversely affect in any important degree" attendance at other games in the Philadelphia area or at Franklin Field itself." 6. "We cannot agree that it is wise in either athletic policy or university policy to prevent millions from seeing intercollegiate football on television in a vain attempt to force more thousands to pay admission at the stadium gate." 7. The University of Pennsylvania will cooperate in studying and reporting to the NCAA on the effects of television "but it will not combine in a ban oh television and will carry on as an obligation to its alumni, friends and the public its unbroken 11-year record of television, dividing the revenues equally with the other universities and colleges which it plays." • Penn said it believes that "television is here to stay." Murray pointed out that the university pioneered in the use of television by educational institutions. He said that on October 5, 1940, Penn "first televised, on an experimental basis, a bootfall game on Franklin Field." Since then, it has extended TV not only to athletic contests, but to lectures, discussion programs and even surgical operations.
