Been told it was the biggest fight collection of fights in the world at one point. How big was it, has anyone got any information on his collection and how much he loved boxing? discuss.
According to what little I know, you are correct, it was the biggest collection in the world. Jim Jacobs and his partner Bill Cayton had a company that was called "Big Fights Inc." I do not know how they acquired the collection but I seem to recall reading something about Jacobs devoting years to painstakingly search out fight film. For years (if not decades), they sold fight tape through various venues; Ring, KO, Boxing Illustrated, etc.....then, long after Jacobs was gone, most (but not all I think) of the collection was sold to ESPN for a trainload of cash. (9 Figures?) Jim and Bill of course were the managers / co-managers of Benitez, Tyson, etc... Bill was just a business man and seemingly not really a boxing fan (at least when I talked with him), but Jim was a devoted fan of boxing. He was a true student of the game. Jim can be seen doing some of the old Clay/Ali interviews and often did the voice-over work himself even 'calling' the fights (post production). His love of boxing and his tremendous ability to recognize talent, made him one of last of the 'old school' managers.
^wow....yeah basicly cemented everything there. i would like to add that becuase they were a collectors group they wernt like espn who try and buy the film outright... they were traders. any film collector of any genre would prefer a meager sum of money along with a copy of a new film, than a big sum without gaining. which was the key to why it kept growing. where as other libraries just fell apart over the years. it's so mythical,there are rumors of greb films, burley and most of murderers row,joe walcott vs joe gans, battling nelson vs ad wolgast, early dempsey fights (which tyson said he saw, when describing and comparing jacks early years to his contendership years for hbo ), ray robinson at 147,
That is very interesting! I had no idea that was how they went about it. Thanks! :good I'd love to see some of those bouts you mentioned become mainstream available someday....
Jim Jacobs used to advertise in the back of Ring magazine that he was seeking fight films. He was a fairly young man (50's?) when he passed away. Boxing lost a great advocate and asset when it lost Mr. Jacobs. Regarding the mainstreaming of fight films, my hunch is that within the next ten years or so there will be a very high quality You-Tube like pay service with which users will pay a monthly fee and then be allowed to stream as much content as they'd like over the internet. Perhaps you'd pay $xx and get xx hours of content, $xy and get more hours. Anyway, I think once something like that is established, companies like ESPN & Don King will make their libraries available. It'll be a great business move - ESPN will only have to upload the fight film once to a server, but will see royalties forever every time it's streamed by a fan. There will be motivation for ESPN to get EVERYTHING up so the hardcore folks like us will keep subscribing to the service & streaming fights + whatever other content that interests us. In fact, I think that's why they've limited what they've broadcast - they don't want copies of lots of fights floating around among traders, they want whatever download service emerges to have "exclusives". I think it's only a matter of time before everything that was ever printed, recorded, and filmed / videotaped and made available for public consumption is available on the internet. Apple's iTunes has said they want to have available every recording that was ever made; there's Sports Illustrated's Vault; and various newspaper archives. Not to mention the popularity of YouTube. We'll only see more as time goes on.
I hope you are correct. At this point, you can not compare companies to private collectors. If you ever deal with a private collector of rare film, you will know they aren't going to commercialize their prize possessions unless they are offered a substantial amount of money.
As Mendoza has said its not just a financial/ technological issue. A lot of people who have these rare fights really want to make sure they stay rare fights for the cache attached to owning them.
there stupid as hell whats the point of having rare fights if you dont let nobody else see them so you cant discuss them. There obviously not fans
Or perhaps some of us with rare fights paid substantial amounts of money to acquire these films and don`t feel like passing them around like candy for free to others. I agree for some in fact most collectors who have rare films want them to stay that way so that they can claim to be the only or one of the few who owns a particular fight, but for others like myself its a matter of not wanting to give up for nothing in return something that cost me a lot of money to acquire in the first place. If I pay anywhere between 200$US - 500$US for a single fight which I have done many, many times I am in no way obligated to share it with anyone else nor am I inclined to do so, it is after all my extra hours at work away from my family that allowed me to save up the cash to buy the films. I put in all the work, time and effort to acquire the footage, so if anyone else wants it they have to at least compensate me with what I think is fair. And then there is the matter of some films being bought with the understanding that they are not to be passed on to others, and as an honourable person I would never betray such terms if I agreed to them before buying the film or films in question. Acquring rare fights is a hobby for some, a passion for others (like myself) and it is usually us folks that get the good stuff because we go that extra mile to make sure we get what we want while others ***** and moan about us not being willing to share yet conveniently overlook the fact that they put in nowhere near the same amount of time/effort and especially money to get the fights they seek and instead just ***** and moan. People like that **** me off and can go **** themselves tenfold, seriously its whiners like that that make us folks with rare footage not want to part with any of it. As an example just try and get someone to share something with you if you always complain about them not sharing, it doesn`t work and just makes the person more resentful towards you. I do not desire to hoard my good stuff and keep it all to myself and to bring my reels with me to my grave, I have shared a lot of film that I paid top dollar for just for the sake of sharing it and letting fellow fight fans get to see someone there is very limited footage of, but I draw the line at some point for reasons already stated and for those who don`t like it they can **** off and go to hell. Us serious collectors get a bum rap from the ignorant masses for no good reason, and it pisses me off which is why I had to say what I had to say, hopefully some of you will be a little more enlightened now from reading this post.
Good 4 you mate:good I've had the same **** regarding my collection of boxing posters, i've now regretfully had 2 put my logo over them 2 stop people taking images for free, if they'd even pay me $2.00 that would be fine 2 help pay the ruiness cost ov maintaining a website, like you i've spent 10,s of thousands amassing original vintage On-Site/closed Circuit & modern day fight posters These cheeky *******s just expect/demand that i sell-em 4 chump change due 2 the fact McDonalds has cut overtime & want the images for free i.e 4 wallpaper/Boxing vidio covers or just 2 sell cheap re-prints of my posters on ebay. Thats right, NO ****IN FREE LUNCH, NEVER:fire In effect we are preserving history & it's not unreasonable just 2 ask for a few $$$$ for the time you'v e put in & what you can make available, i'll end this now before i BLOW UP:bbb
Before you're so quick to get on your high horses please read my post again. I only explained some of the thinking behind some collectors not sharing rare fights, I DID'NT criticize or comment on those, or any other, reasons why collectors don't share fights. (That goes out to both the organ grinder AND the ******)
Although I don't agree that fight collections be private, I can respect the fact that you paid that much money and you can do whatever the hell you want with the film.
I notice alot of times Posters don't read what another wrote correctly, and jump the gun on attacking them. This being an example.