Promoting college basketball, by Ari Sclar

Fan interest in the CCNY-NYU game aroused the curiosity of promoters.  The game had been played before 5,000 fans at the 102^nd Armory, but reports indicated that three times as many people wanted tickets.  Promoters made a failed attempt to move the game to Madison Square Garden, although they successfully organized a series of double-headers at the Garden the following season.[1]  Lead promoter Ned Irish explained that he left his job as a sportswriter at the New York World Telegram to run the double-headers because: “Basket ball in the Metropolitan area should have the greatest ready-made market of any sport. It is played in colleges, high schools, elementary schools, at playgrounds.”  Speaking to the same fluidity of New York basketball that Barney Ain had described in Spalding, Irish stated that “games in college gymnasiums and armories have been well-attended – but principally by younger enthusiasts who were willing to brave the discomforts of first-come first-served ushering, makeshift seats with somebody’s legs hanging over your shoulders and abominable ventilation.”  These conditions could only attract the most dedicated – and partisan – fans, whereas “adult fans were not attracted.”  Irish intended to transform the audience experience and hoped to exploit basketball’s popularity by giving “the fans a good place in which to watch games.”[2]

Not everyone celebrated the new model of New York college basketball.  Prior to a double-header in December 1935, NYU students publicly complained of being relegated to “gallery” seats.  A student publication declared that, “one can easily deduce that the non-commercialism of NYU athletics is just so much talk and nothing more.”  Two student publications boycotted basketball and refused to include news on the team until officials remedied the situation.  Upon being informed of the controversy, Irish denied any responsibility.  A media report stated that Irish believed the “matter rested solely between the students and the university officials.”  He also provided assurances to all fans “that there was no foundation for the claims of poor visibility from the balcony.”[3] 

The failed boycott did not prevent the isolation and marginalization of students purposely implemented by Irish.  Promoters of the March 1934 CCNY-NYU game limited student tickets to 500 from each school, but students remained well represented at a contest with an audience of 5,000.  Irish’s desire to exploit an existing mass culture and cater to an older audience led to a scathing critique in the Nation.  In March 1935, columnist ‘Left Wing’ stated: “a college basketball team has no more place in a professional sports arena… than a Jew in Hitler’s bathtub.”  ‘Left Wing’ connected the Garden double-headers to the ‘evils’ of college athletics, which “today is in the control of thoroughly venal men” who only cared about the commercial benefits of sport.  They hypocritically called college sports amateur while “making it professional in everything but name, with paid athletes, games played before enormous throngs, and a professional atmosphere surrounding the whole thing.”[4] 

Few commentators or sportswriters joined ‘Left Wing’ in condemning the new model.  The double-headers assured college basketball’s place in the pantheon of American sport.  They received national media attention and praise from national sportswriters as articles marveled at the sudden rise of college basketball into the “big-time.”  Magazines and newspapers produced familiar storylines as teams, players, and coaches became recognizable figures.  New York schools welcomed the financial opportunities provided by the Garden.  One media report stated that CCNY’s Holman “looks with high favor upon the development” of basketball’s “prosperous future.”[5]  Yet, whereas the charity double and triple headers of the early 1930s had been local or regional events, the regular double-headers brought teams from across the nation to play New York schools.  This posed a problem.

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[1] Isaacs, All the Moves, 76, 78-79.

[2] “Basket Ball Cashes Big Time in New York, Seen as Threat to Football in Crowds, Dollars,” Washington Post, January 7, 1935.

[3] “NYU Papers Urge Basketball Boycott,” New York Times, December 20, 1935.  The cited quote is from the Washington Square College Bulletin.  NYU had recently de-emphasized football due to commercialism.

[4] “The Build-Up of Basketball,” The Nation, March 27, 1935.

[5] “Playing the Game,” Literary Digest, January 12, 1935.