Mr. KASTENMEIER. We will recess and return in 10 minutes to conclude the hearings today.

[A brief recess was taken.]

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. The committee will come to order.

At this moment, I would like to welcome the last witness on today's schedule, Capt. John O. Coppedge, who is chairman of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Cable Television Subcommittee. Captain Coppedge?

[The prepared statement of Mr. Coppedge follows:]

STATEMENT OF JOHN O. COPPEDGE, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, CABLE TELEVISION SUBCOMMITTEE

The National Collegiate Athletic Association and its more than 800 members and affiliated organizations believe that the provisions of the Copyright Revision Bill (H.R. 2223) granting cable television a compulsory license to make secondary transmissions of television broadcasts must be amended to protect college athletic programs from serious injury as a result of widespread, uncontrolled secondary transmissions of sports events.

Cable system carriage of certain telecasts of collegiate and professional sports events into communities located far from the transmitting site endangers inperson attendance at college games essential to the economic viability of these programs. By presenting on local television events which would not be authorized for television broadcasting in the area concerned because of the injury which would be inflicted on local schools and colleges, it threatens both protection from professional football telecasts extended by Federal law, and protection from intercollegiate event telecasts which is a major element of NCAA telecasting policies. Such cable carriage also increasingly inhibits the access of collegiate sports events to broadcast television, and thus the extent to which they are available to the television-viewing public.

It is the NCAA's position that the compulsory license provisions of Section 111 of the bill must be amended by provisions which would:

1. Provide high schools and colleges with protection against cable retransmissions of television broadcasts of professional football games into areas where such broadcasts themselves would be precluded by the limitations imposed by Congress in Section 3 of Public Law 87-331; and

2. Limit cable retransmissions of television broadcasts of intercollegiate sports events into areas where the broadcasting of the event concerned is not authorized. In the event that this Subcommittee concludes that the Federal Communications Commission is the proper agency to develop detailed regulation of cable television operations in these regards, we submit that Congress must include in H.R. 2223 provisions which give the Commission specific direction and authorization to develop such rules which take into account all relevant interests.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

The member organizations of the NCAA are firmly committed to the philosophy expressed in Article II of the NCAA's Constitution that "competitive athletic programs of the colleges are designed to be a vital part of the educational system." To this end, these organizations provide competitive programs in at least 36 different sports for more than 210,000 men and women. The NCAA estimates that if the programs of non-member institutions are taken into account, approximately $269,048,000 are spent annually by this nation's colleges and universities to provide some 300,000 students with the educational benefits of amateur sports.

While the NCAA has several concerns in common with the professional sports leagues, including the concern regarding the impact of cable carriage of broadcasts of sports events, it is important to bear in mind that the financial situation and needs of intercollegiate athletic programs differ from those of professional sports leagues and teams in fundamental ways. In football, for example, the National Football League fields 26 teams each of which is based in a major metropolitan area, for a possible total of 13 games on a given Sunday-Monday period. The NCAA currently has some 800 member institutions, the bulk of which are located in smaller towns and rural areas, and which on a given Saturday are likely to field several hundred teams. Thus, in the case of collegiate events there are

many more games which could potentially be harmed, and many of these games are played in relatively rural areas where a high proportion of the local population must attend if the game is to be successful.

Moreover, the loss of even a few dollars in gate receipts or television revenues resulting from cable retransmissions may have a major impact on the viability of a college athletic program. The financial crisis in higher education is well documented, and the situation of athletics is particularly perilous. The NCAA has estimated that as few as 10 percent of intercollegiate sports programs are fully self-supporting. Financial pressures have led a number of universities to eliminate or seriously curtail their intercollegiate sports programs.

Financial concerns have also led to recommendations that substantial cutbacks in college athletics be made on a nationwide basis, and in particular that reductions in the number and amount of athletic scholarships be made. This last suggestion, while offering a relatively simple means of achieving a substantial savings, would have a drastic effect on programs which have been an important factor in offering the opportunity of a college education and personal advancement to underprivileged students.

The essential fact that we wish to call to the Committee's attention is that what is at issue when the implications of cable carriage of sports events broadcasts are discussed in the context of intercollegiate athletic programs is not the mere profits of a business enterprise, but rather educational programs which are particularly sensitive to economic pressures.

THE CURRENT SITUATION

A. Cable system retransmission of intercollegiate sports events

Since the 1950's the NCAA has administered a series of football telecasting plans, designed to promote the telecasting of intercollegiate sports for the benefit of the viewing public, and to spread the availability of television coverage and the resultant revenues as widely as possible among the participating schools. These plans provide for no "blackout" of games appearing on the national series, but they do include provisions designed to measure the impact of telecasting on concurrently conducted college games.

The result is a program which serves the interests of the colleges and the viewing public by encouraging the telecasting of the maximum number of intercollegiate games with a maximum number of schools participating. By providing protection for other colleges and universities against the undue hardships which might otherwise result from such telecasting, this plan further serves the public interest by insuring the continuing vitality of a large number of sports programs providing opportunities both for participation by this country's youth, and for future viewing-either in person or on television. An important element of flexibility is injected into these arrangements by provisions authorizing "exception telecasts." These rules permit limited telecasting of events of local interest, such as sold-out home games or games played far from an institution's campus, but which are not selected by the network for telecasting on the national series. Such telecasts are made, however, only where they will have no substantial adverse impact on in-person attendance at contemporaneous, non-telecast college games. Of the 174 appearances on television made by NCAA teams in 1974, 74 were the result of exception telecasts. It is clear that without appropriate limitations on cable retransmissions of geographically distant television broadcasts of college events, the assumptions on which the NCAA telecasting plans are based will be vitiated, and these arrangements which have served colleges and the television-viewing public so well will be destroyed. Cable carriage of regional network telecasts of NCAA events across regional boundaries will make it impossible for colleges to schedule their games so as to avoid the impact of the multiple events appearing in local television. Eventually, it will destroy the regional system. Widespread cable carriage will magnify the impact of "exception telecasts" on contemporaneous games, and has already severely curtailed the ability of NCAA institutions to make such telecasts. The inescapable result of such cable retransmissions will be that fewer NCAA institutions will have meaningful access to broadcast television, there will be less college sports available on over-the-air television, and many college programs will suffer economically.

B. Cable system retransmissions of professional football telecasts

Cable retransmissions also endanger the protection from professional football telecasts which Congress extended to colleges and high schools in the 1961 Telecasting of Professional Sports Contests Act (P.L. 87-331). This measure

provides professional sports leagues a limited exemption from the antitrust laws so as to permit them to negotiate league-wide television contracts. In express recognition of the public interest in maintaining viable school-college athletic programs, however, it precludes television broadcasts of professional football games on Friday evenings or on Saturdays in conflict with scheduled local high school or college games. It is clear that under this provision the professional football clubs may make Friday evening or Saturday telecasts which do not conflict with local school or college games in the area of the broadcast, and such telecasts are in fact made. At the time this provision was enacted, cable carriage was principally confined to local broadcast signals, and accordingly was not a major concern.

Recent and projected growth in the number and capacity of cable systems, and a regulatory climate in which the importation of distant broadcast signals by cable systems has steadily grown, now endanger the protection extended by Public Law 87-331. In the absence of appropriate limitations, cable systems will import broadcasts of programs made in localities without conflicting school or college games into communities where such games are taking place, with disastrous effect on the gate at the high school and college games.

PROPOSED REMEDIAL MEASURES

The NCAA urges that special limitations designed to protect high school and college sports programs from potential injury due to cable carriage of professional and amateur sports event broadcasts be imposed on the authority which this bill would grant to cable television systems to make secondary transmissions of television broadcasts.

Protection against professional sports encroachment could be provided by prohibiting retransmission of a professional football game by a cable system located in an area in which the broadcasting of the pro game would be forbidden by Section 3 of P.L. 87-331. A second amendment which would exclude from the compulsory license any simultaneous retransmission of an intercollegiate event into an area in which that event is not available to broadcasters would provide protection against potentially harmful carriage of intercollegiate events. In connection with the later provision, it would be understood that the term "available" should be used in a hypothetical sense, and that the fact that a local broadcaster had decided not to transmit an event which was otherwise available to him would not preclude cable system carriage in the community concerned.

Such amendments would simply assure that cable systems are subject to the same limitations as television broadcasters in the carriage of sports event broadcasts. It would be important, of course, to insure that the full scope of injunctive remedies are available to prevent the irreparable injury that violations of these provisions could cause.

We recognize that the Federal Communications Commission has initiated a rulemaking proceeding (FCC Docket No. 19417) dealing with cable carriage of sports event telecasts. We believe that in this proceeding the FCC has ample authority to deal completely with the issues concerned and that it could promulgate rules which would accord colleges the protection required. However, the Commission itself has raised questions as to the extent of its authority, and whether in regulating cable it can take account of the impact of cable carriage on interests such as those of the NCAA's members. In the circumstances, it can confidently be predicted that any rules which the Commission may ultimately issue will be subjected to time-consuming court challenges before they become effective.

Moreover, widely circulated reports suggest that in the absence of clear policy direction from Congress, the Commission is likely, if it issues any rule at all, to adopt a regulation limited to forbidding the retransmission of an event by a cable system into the area where that event is being played. Even assuming that it applied to amateur as well as professional sports, such a "blackout” protection is not responsive to the concerns of the colleges and would not accord the necessary protection.

The NCAA submits that the issues of cable carriage of sports events are a matter of substantial public interest on which Congress must make its will known. The adoption of specific protection in the Copyright Revision Bill is clearly the most direct and appropriate means to accomplish this result.

Should Congress decide, however, that the FCC is the appropriate forum to develop detailed regulations dealing with these issues, then it is critical that

57-786-76-pt. 2—10

H.R. 2223 incorporate specific language calling upon the Commission to take action to protect intercollegiate sports and granting it specific authority in this

area.

CONCLUSION

Intercollegiate athletics stands now at a critical point in its history. The financial difficulties of educational institutions are having a particularly heavy impact on sports programs. New governmental policies are being promulgated, the implementation of which will impose substantial burdens on collegiate sports programs. The goal of the NCAA is simply to attempt to assure that these programs are not further ravaged by cable systems acting in the name of increased profits and illusory viewer benefits. It is the NCAA's belief that this can be accomplished in a balanced manner without undue prejudice to the interests of any individual group.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN O. COPPEDGE, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, CABLE TELEVISION ASSOCIATION SUBCOMMITTEE, ACCOMPANIED BY RITCHIE THOMAS, COUNSEL, NCAA

Mr. COPPEDGE. Thank you, very much.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. You have been very patient to wait until this hour to present your statement.

Mr. COPPEDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee. My name is John Coppedge. I am director of athletics at the U.S. Naval Academy.

I am here today, however, as the chairman of the cable television subcommittee of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. My purpose is to express the view of the NCAA member colleges and universities, that the compulsory license to make secondary transmissions of television broadcasts, which the copyright revision bill would grant to cable television systems, must include limitations protecting college athletic programs from damage from cable carriage. of certain sports events broadcasts.

In view of the limited time available this afternoon, I will confine my remarks to a brief outline of the nature and basis for our concern. I request, however, that the NCAA's full prepared statement be incorporated in the record of this hearing.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. Without objection, the statement will be received, in full.

Mr. COPPEDGE. Cable system retransmissions of certain telecasts of collegiate and professional sports events into communities located far from the transmitting site endangers in-person attendance at college games essential to the economic viability of intercollegiate athletic programs.

By presenting on local television events which would not be authorized for television broadcasting in the area concerned, because of the injury which would be inflicted on local high school and colleges, it threatens both protection from professional football telecasts extended by Federal law, and protection from intercollegiate event telecasts which is a major element of NCAA telecasting policies.

Cable carriage of professional football telecasts made on Friday nights or on Saturdays during the high school or college football season, threatens to erode protection from such telecasts which Congress extended to high schools and colleges in section 3 of Public Law 87-331, with potential serious impact on high school and college gate receipts.

Cable retransmissions of NCAA football telecasts into areas where a different regional game is being broadcast threatens to destroy the NCAA's regional system of telecasts, a critical element in the NCAA's telecasting policy, which permits a broad range of NCAA institutions to gain television exposure and related revenues.

In the 1974 football season, 110 NCAA colleges and universities realized a total of more than $8 million in revenues from regional telecasts. In recent years, widespread cable carriage has also increasingly prevented NCAA members from taking advantage of NCAA television plan provision permitting individual institutions to make limited local telecasts of football games-such as sold out home games or games played a substantial distance from the institution's campuswhich were not selected by the network for appearance on the national series.

Thirty-seven NCAA institutions appeared on such "exception" telecasts last year. Institutions already precluded by cable carriage from making exception telecasts include Ohio State and the University of Arizona, while telecasts by Arkansas and the University of Michigan are on the endangered list. Accordingly, unless this bill incorporates appropriate specific limitations on secondary transmissions of intercollegiate sports event telecasts, or at a minimum expressed directions to the Federal Communications Commission to issue rules on this regard, the access of collegiate sports events to broadcast televisionand thus, the extent to which they are available to the television viewing public-will be gravely curtailed, and many colleges which now share in television exposure and revenues only because of the regional and exception telecasting agreements, will suffer.

We are asking only that cable systems be subjected to the same limitations as apply to television broadcasts of the sports events concerned. We believe that our request is reasonable and that it is in the public interest to protect high school and college athletic programs. We urge the adoption of provisions in section 111 which respond to

our concern.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Thank you.

Do I understand that, in terms of your chairing this cable television subcommittee of the NCAA, do you represent the views of the colleges and high schools? Do you represent the high schools' point of view, too?

Mr. COPPEDGE. I represent the high schools' point of view only to the extent that they suffer the same problems that we do. And as we have been-the professional rules covered both, so that is the reason for my language in the statement.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Whatever it is-and perhaps it is not precisely clear what we have heard, that organized professional baseball and professional hockey seeks, in terms of control over their cable transmissions, as well as normal broadcasts, do you seek a similar remedy in the bill?

Mr. COPPEDGE. I do not think so, exactly. Our concern is if a game is televised, we would like the same restrictive provisions for cable television that are provided the regular broadcasting people.

We are not trying to black it out. We are just trying to make sure that the colleges and schools in a particular area have some time during the day in which they can play, that they will not have to be faced with television.