Fireman Flynn KO 1 Jack Dempsey

On the 24th of June 1916 Dempsey shared a purse of 16 dollars with Price his then manager, this was for beating Andre Anderson.A couple of weeks later he shared 43$ with Price for beating Bert Kenney yet seven months latr he is fighting for a 5000$ gate?

 

The $5000 does seem high, but it comes from a primary source. A ringside reporter at the fight.

On the other hand, $16 or $43 seem rather low for fights in New York City. What is the source for these numbers? It is possible that perhaps almost no one was interested in seeing Dempsey fight in New York in 1916, but in remote Salt Lake City he was a draw. At Salt Lake he might have been a big fish in a small pound. In New York City he was a minnow in the ocean.

Dempsey getting pay days of $350 in Ogden and $325 in Ely in 1916 comes from the IBRO article posted earlier.

I remember reading somewhere, but I don't recall the source, that the Dempsey-Flynn fight was at the time a record Utah gate.

*All I would say about this is that in my judgment the figure with the best sourcing is the $5000 gate as it comes from an on-the-scene reporter.

**One question. I wonder if that $5000 figure refers to only the ticket sales, or possibly to the total gross, which might be much higher if it includes sales of beverages and snacks and possibly tobacco to the waiting crowd.

 

How much would a general admission ticket be for the first bout between Fireman Jim Flynn and Jack Dempsey in Murray, Utah during the early part of 1917? For regular fight shows at the time, a general admission ticket was fifty cents, seventy-five cents or one dollar. Also keep in mind that the average daily wage for an average U.S. working man was probably about $2.00 or $3.00 at the time. Under the circumstances, I believe that at least several thousand paying customers would have to be in attendance for the first bout in order for the gate to be even close to $5,000. Moreover, it was my understanding that the bout didn't draw a large crowd.

- Chuck Johnston

 

The report says that it was supposed to be a charity event, that the fighters/promoters wrangled amongst each other about who's getting what, before getting in the ring, and that they ran all off with the money .... so $5000 might be a high guess made by the folks who'd been duped.

Also, it's that what happens at a LEGIT FIGHT, 100% ON THE LEVEL, then it's no wonder 'fix' rumours get started.
They were a bunch of crooks.

 

I have seen the figures of $5 for ringside tickets and $3 for general admission. The ticket prices seem to have been so high as this was an event sponsored by the fire department and thus had the vibe of a civic charity.

So I would guess about 1400 would be needed to get up to $5000, again assuming that figure refers to ticket sales and not some sort of total gross.

Could Murray have had a hall big enough for that? I really don't know.

"It is my understanding that the bout didn't draw a large crowd."

Based on what? The $5000 figure comes from a ringside report in which the promoter is quoted directly by the reporter-although not on the size of the gate-implying that the reporter talked to him. The three ringside articles are in a post by Senya's blog on the top of page two. None of the three give any indication the crowd was small. On the contrary. It was probably a large crowd, at least by Murray standards.

 

I think it fair to ask why you think the reporter would simply make up a number for the gate receipts and lie about it when all this could be so easily checked at the time.

I think he would look foolish if he wrote about a $5000 gate when there was a "small" crowd.

 

I was curious about how that $3 general admission ticket stacks up for people of that era versus modern ticket prices.

Average income for an American in the 1910's--$750
Ticket price of $3 (1/250 of yearly income)

Average income for an American 2010--$44,321
Average ticket price for a Dallas Cowboys home game in 2010--$160
($160 x 250 = $40,000----comes out about the same, doesn't it. With the impact of modern taxation, that $3 is probably less in take home pay than the modern $160 would be)

*Of course one could argue the Dallas Cowboys are a lot more big league than the Dempsey-Flynn fight would have been, but that fight could have been a big event way out in Utah in 1917.

 

As I said in my post above ringside seats were $5 and general admission was $2. Its hard to determine the average ticket price without a seating plan or the number of each type of ticket but would have been far short of $5 meaning the Fire Hall would have had to have fairly sizeable (unlikely) to garner a $5,000 gate. Its not impossible but seems unlikely. That being said the purses and ticket prices seem awfully high as well for a relative backwater and two guys who werent really big draws. One interesting thing is that the newspapers state this would be Dempsey's first real test in Utah and that prior to this fights his opponents had all been easy pickings. If this was the perception, even with Flynn shot, it likely pointed to short betting odds which would have made a dive relatively pointless.

Another interesting thing I found when I researched this fight, which is never mentioned as a part of the Dempsey narrative, is that he actually returned to New York for a second visit before this fight and had only recently returned to Utah. The accepted narrative is that Dempsey went to New York, got his contract sold to and then was taken advantage of by John Reisler, then, after a less than impressive series of fights fled the Big Apple with broken ribs and broken dreams only to return triumphantly years later as a top contender. In reality Dempsey returned to New York in the winter of 1916/17 and lived off of Reisler's hospitality for his stay as he tried to patch things up with his manager. Reisler bought him clothes and food and when Dempsey had taken him for the proverbial ride and once again fled New York, this time without even fighting for Reisler. Thats a far cry from the "poor Dempsey was taken advantage of by the big city manager" story we always read about. It paints a different picture of Dempsey as the opportunist and gives a reasonable motive as to why Reisler went after him hammer and tongs for years after starting long before he won the title.

 

Ticket prices were $2 and $5 according to the Salt Lake City Tribune.

 

In those days 1. reporters were often closely tied to the promoter and 2. realized that ballyhooing a fight was good for everybody (more interest meant bigger gates, more money, more people coming into town, and more to write about) so you will see, more often than not, writers acting as ad hoc press agents for sporting events.

How, if the press were supporting or supported by the promoters, could attendance numbers and gate receipts be easily checked? The only thing you could do is go to the promoter and ask him if the story in the newspaper was correct and if he was trying to make the gate look bigger (or smaller as sometimes happened for tax reasons) they could simply tell you exactly what they told the reporter. Like I said above, most of the writers had an interest in helping the promoter to a degree so they werent likely to question it and the average fan on the street like you or me who did the rough math isnt going to see his findings or opinions in print so even if somebody disputed those numbers its unlikely we would ever hear about it.

 

Off the article, though, this reporter certainly doesn't seem to be in the promoter's pocket. The gist of the article is that the fire department which sponsored the fight was jobbed by the promoter.

From the point of view of the promoter, I don't see that it is that much in his interest to puff up the gate either, as this would merely raise more issues about why the fire department was shorted so badly.

 

I stand corrected.

Yes, it was $2 for the general admission tickets, which raises the number of patrons who would have to be on hand, probably to about 1700.

It does not seem that unlikely to me that this many folks might have wanted to attend the fight, given the area's population.

but it does strike me as unlikely that any winter venue in Murray would have had that much capacity.

Still, this is the only figure with primary source evidence I have seen.

"short odds make a dive relatively pointless"

I agree that what is missing is any motive for anyone else fixing a Dempsey loss. Just doesn't make much sense, even if you buy into Dempsey needing the money so badly he was willing to throw away his local career.

 

The other possibility is that the author is a progressive and was one of those opposed to the fight and as such has an interest in making it look worse than it was. For instance: The fire dept agreed to a $250 guarantee to use its name. Thats a big sum of money in those days. Ticket prices were advertised and the amount of seating capacity would have been known in advance. Why would the fire department complain about their guarantee after the fact if the fight did well at the gate? That makes no sense as they would have known how much the gate could have potentially been.

 

Another thing that makes me skeptical that this venue would have housed over 1000 people is that it is mentioned that it had to be renovated to change the entrance from one small door to two large doors in order to admit patrons and two box offices had to be installed. This hints that this venue was not designed to hold large crowds of people. Dempsey himself later estimated that about 400 people showed up for the fight (for whatever thats worth as Dempsey is a notoriously poor source).