Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 154, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1917 — MONEY MAKERS HURT SPORTS [ARTICLE]

MONEY MAKERS HURT SPORTS

Trouble Arises Between Owner and Player When Discussion of Receipts Is Taken Up. Grantland Rice says that the influence of money upon sport is bound to be bad. There is no way out. As long as gate receipts continue to grow there is a certalpty of ill feeling at hand between those who pay and those who play. It has been suggested that in baseball a good many years ago there was far less trouble between magnate and player. This is true. But there was also a run of smaller gate receipts. When admissions run up to 8,000 and 10,000 a day and the pot increases, trouble is sure to keep piling up. The player wants to make all he can get. The owner wants to get all he can make, both sides having the true human touch. There is nothing at all out of the-ordinary in all this, since the same conditions exist in every branch of existence- It only seems worse in a game, for everyone likes to think that sport is divorced from financial consideration, whereas in this country sport and the love of watching spore have been capitalized to the limit, The only way out would be to abolish all gate receipts. And this is no wnv out, for then there would be no Qijly baseball. So baseball will have m fight its way out, just as various other trades have to scramble along, with a few breathing spells between trouble. Big money has come' to the game, and big money means big trouble when discussion of the proper split arises. It may seem to be a shame that a great game should be marred by loud and raucous debate over the division of the spoils, but there are a number of things in this world that seem to be a shame tWrt/ eau’t be averted.