Football Blackout

For months before the big Kentucky-Tennessee game, every seat in the stadium at Lexington, Ky., had been sold out. Louisville's station WHAS-TV was ready & willing to telecast the game; University of Kentucky officials were eager to have it televised. But the telecast was banned just the same. Reason: the National Collegiate Athletic Association's experimental blackout, designed to test the effect of TV on football attendance (TIME, June 18).

Since the N.C.A.A. plan went into effect this fall, only 19 major games have been telecast across the nation, with one area going without a game each week. Last week it was Louisville's turn to be blacked out. Getting nowhere in his protest to the colleges, Kentucky's Governor Lawrence Wetherby telegraphed to Attorney General Howard McGrath, asking him to order removal of the N.C.A.A. ban. The Department of Justice replied that it considered such bans illegal, noted that it had filed suit last month against the professional National Football League for similar broadcasting restrictions.

This was encouraging news for the millions of televiewers who had bought their sets under the impression they could sit comfortably at home and watch the nation's top sports events. But it did little good for Kentucky fans. The N.C.A.A. TV Committee, despite the Department of Justice opinion, stood firm, and no one outside Lexington's stadium saw the nation's top-ranking team roll over Kentucky, 28-0, on its way to the Sugar Bowl.

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