February 8, 1941

“Mrs Ned Nordness — |
International News Service
Kansas City, Missouri =

Dear Ned;

Peidon my delay in answering your good letter soonere The fact
of the matter is I heve not had an opportunity to get around to ite

* Moy basketball never will be the bromi catcher” that football

ise Of coursé, it outdraws cither football or baseball by a wide margin,
but it is the feet that more gemes are playeds

: the size of thé court is the thing that will keep basketball attendance
dow about 17,000 or 18,000, or about all that attend a basketbell sane |
atone time. Ifa basketball playing field was as large as some of the
other fields, then you could look for greater crowdss At times I have |
advocated tint the basketball court be increased to 110* x 60%, It is now
94* x 50% Seven men could pley on a team as well as fives in fact, there
would be more space for each player with 2 floor of this dimension than
there is for a 59% x 94% Floor, and you can still loak into’ the future

when you will have large auditoriums iile the Yansas City Auditoriun

and it will be possible to have a court 130* x 75* with mine men on @

Sides ‘Then it would become the “erond catcher” that sane of the other

sports arse

4 No, I do not think thet professional basketball has helped basketball
» @ whits in feet, I think it has discoureged ite I belicve eclleges

have done more then anything else to meke the country conscious of the great
‘Grawing power of basketball, ‘then, of course, Ned Trish, when he brought .
basketball in the Carden caused all thd New York newspaper men and magazine

writers to rediscover basketball as crowd psycholagy. :

the country had been accustomed to having 12,000 te 14,000 people
in the large field houses, like Mimesota, etce, but New York never realized
it until the game was brought into the Gardene In my opinion the crowl
is limited only by the seating capacity at the gemes that draw interest.

| I honestly believe that we could have sold twenty thousand seats
— to the MeCesAs Tournament here last year if we had had them, and when it
is remembered that so many of those seats are in the end of the hall, then
it is the more phenomenal that people would sit where they did and watch a
. basketball gamee If the court were larger, the crowds would be much greaters

; Answering your query on commercialism in basketball, I believe that
when coaches beat the brshh and offer lucrative jobs to basketball players,