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George (Tex) Rickard led boxing into the era of million-dollar
gates, huge crowds and fights at Madison Square Garden. Born
in Missouri in 1871, Rickard left school at age nine. In 1894,
he went to Alaska and discovered gold, although he later
remarked that he sold his claim for too low a price. When the
Klondike gold rush started, Rickard ran a hotel in Dawson
known as the Northern. He made a sizable fortune before going
broke in the boom-and-bust economy. He opened another version
of the Northern in Nome and stayed in Alaska for the next
twelve years.
Rickard followed gold prospectors to Nevada, where he opened
another hotel called the Northern, before boxing caught his
fancy. Local business leaders wanted to stage a boxing match
to publicize the growing community. Rickard had recently
attended a boxing match in New York, so he was given the task
of making the arrangements. He tried unsuccessfully to sign
Terry McGovern and Jimmy Britt-the two fighters he had seen in
New York, but then landed Joe Gans and Battling Nelson for
$30,000. The gate receipts from the fight, held on Labor Day,
1906, were $69,715, the largest ever for a boxing match.
Although Rickard was no boxing expert, he saw the earning
potential of the sport. Backed by Montana mining interests,
Rickard outbid James Coffroth among others for the right to
promote the James J. Jeffries-Jack Johnson fight. The fight
was held in Reno on July 4, 1910. Rickard helped recoup the
money paid to the fighters by selling the film rights for
$101,000. The fight drew 15,760 fans who paid $270,775 to see
the spectacle.
Rickard believed in getting top attractions, publicizing them,
and charging high prices for the tickets. When he shifted his
base of operations to New York following the passage of the
Walker Law which legalized boxing in the state, Rickard made
successful overtures to the upper strata of society. He was
also skillful in dealing with politicians to facilitate the
promotion of his fights.
At the urging of Jack Dempsey's manager, Jack (Doc) Kearns,
Rickard agreed to promote the Jess Willard-Dempsey
championship fight in Toledo, Ohio in 1919. Although that
match was not one of Rickard's most successful promotions, it
set the stage for another Dempsey fight held at Boyle's Thirty
Acres near Jersey City on July 2, 1921.
Rickard matched heavyweight champion Dempsey with light
heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier. Although Dempsey
outweighed Carpentier by about twenty pounds, Rickard raised
interest in the fight to never-before-seen levels. He played
on the fact that Carpentier had been a French war hero in
World War I, while Dempsey had avoided military service.
Dempsey won the fight easily, but the real story was the gate.
More than 80,000 fans paid a record $1,789,238. Five years
later in a Rickard promotion, 120,757 paid $1,895,733 to watch
Gene Tunney upset Dempsey. The rematch held in Soldier Field
in Chicago drew 104,943 with a gate of $2,658,660.
Rickard developed Madison Square Garden into a top boxing
venue. With help from Nat Fleischer and others in site
selection and financing, Rickard built a new Madison Square
Garden at 49th Street and Eighth Avenue, which became known as
"The House That Tex Built." The New York Rangers hockey team
was named after Rickard as a wordplay on "Texas Rangers."
Rickard also helped Nat Fleischer start The Ring
magazine and compiled the first annual top-ten-contender
ratings for the magazine. At the time of his death on January
6, 1929, Rickard was planning on expanding his base of
operations to Florida and England.
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