ABSTRACT
The opponents in the first intercollegiate sports contest in the United States and the sport at which they competed might surprise you. In the context of contemporary big-time college athletics, the commercial sponsorship of this inaugural event may not seem so surprising, but other aspects of its organization were very different from major college sports today. According to sports historians (e.g., Betts 1974), college athletics began with an eight-oared barge or crew race between Harvard and Yale on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire in 1852. While there were no paying spectators and no mass media coverage, this event could be characterized as professional as well as commercial. It was the idea of a railroad owner and real estate developer. His railroad went from Boston to Lake Winnipesaukee. His idea was to market vacation lots he wanted to sell in the southern New Hampshire lake area through a sports event. Crew was a popular sport at that time, and he hoped to get wealthy friends and families of the Harvard and Yale rowers to ride his railroad to the race and invest in his vacation lots (Deford 2005). The athletes were induced to compete with offers to pay all their expenses and provide “lavish prizes” and “unlimited alcohol” (Bok 2003:35).
