Who was more famous in the 20s: Dempsey or Ruth?

In the roaring 20s, boxing and baseball were the two most popular sports (in the U.S. at least, not sure from a world perspective).

Who was a bigger icon in that decade: Babe Ruth or Jack Dempsey? We're not talking greatness here, cause that's a debate Dempsey would lose. Relative to sport, Ruth was greater by a mile. I'm talking simply in terms of fame.

 

Ruth by a landslide. Boxing has always been a bit of a niche niche sport imo. Yeah I guess boxing was more popular in the 20's but Ruth is an American Icon cant imagine Dempsey being more popular jajaja.

 

Boxing has ALWAYS been a niche sport? LMAOOOOO!!! Do you ever get tired of saying ignorant shit?

Boxing was incredibly big in the 20s, and Dempsey was no worse than the 2nd most famous athlete in the country. Not saying Ruth wasn't more famous, yeah I would tend to agree, but you're VASTLY underrating how famous Jack was.

 

I say niche sport because it's not part of the big 3(Football/nfl, Baseball/mlb and Basketball NBA). Those 3 are what I consider mainstream sports. Boxing was never as popular with the american viewership as those 3 as far back as I can remember. But you do have a point that I may be understimating how popular Dempsey was in the 20's before cable networks, ppvs and the internet. I still think Ruth was more popular.

 

Genius, I'm taking about the 1920s here...

Neither the NFL nor the NBA existed at the time.

Baseball, boxing, and horse racing were the three major sports in America in the 20s.

Football didn't surpass baseball in popularity until the 70s, really.

And the NBA was considered farrr farrr behind the NFL and MLB until Jordan exploded the sport's popularity in the late 80s/early 90s.

The Hell are you talking about modern times for here?

 

From everything i've ever read or heard it's Ruth but Dempsey is not far behind. He was considered a heroic figure at the time.

Fame and popularity aren't the same thing though. More people in the North America probably "know" Mike Tyson before most superstar athletes in every other sport. The 1920'a didn't have a plethora of famous athletes.

 

Apparently Jack Dempsey was a niche athlete in the 20s.

About as popular as Jermall Charlo is today...

 

I bet if you asked around none of those people even heard of Magic Johnson or Tom Brady.

 

We need Muzse to respond to this thread and gives us a definitive answer. He was there.

 

Boxing and horse racing I think were both a strong second to baseball, and were bigger spectacles.

Dempsey was bringing gates and ears that no baseball game was. He probably wasn't the Babe, but I don't think anyone else was close to them two.

 

Agreed.

 

i'd imagine Dempsey would only have been in the news around fight time, whereas Ruth on a weekly basis?

so i'd suspect Dempsey would have been more famous around fight time, but then in between it's all Ruth every day

 

Worldwide. Its was dempsey by far. Was huge in france because of his fight with carpentier, and france was pretty much the center of the earth after the US at the time

 

Good point!

I wouldn't be surprised if Dempsey had an overall U.S. advantage as well.

In NYC, I'm sure it's clearly Ruth.

Outside of the NYC area? Possibly Jack.

 

Its wild to imagine the 3 top sports in the 1920's were Horseracing, baseball and boxing. It makes sense because black n white tv sets weren't common until the 50's in the U.S and maybe many years later in other parts of the world. sports were followed by radio. This thread reminds me of Cinderella man lmao.

 

What I have found interesting is that the popularity of boxing actually peaked before radio became common and you could follow fights only live or through newspapers or telegram.

My assumption is that boxing worked best as an entertainment if there was a strong social aspect (you were in the crowd) or you could imagine how the fight played out based on the highlights. However, I would assume that 20+ round fights have been quite dreary to follow via radio. Baseball is much better as a radio sport

 

those fights seemed so unwatchable with all their clinching

i wonder if people imagined a boxing match in their head..then when TV came out in the 30's people were like "THAT'S what boxing is!?!?!?"

 

Probably added to the mystique of it all....

 

Louis-Schmeling II was one of the biggest radio broadcasts of a sporting event.

 

From what I’ve read and watched, it seemed in the US that Ruth was #1 and Dempsey #2. #3 was maybe Red Grange?

 

What a bunch of bumpkins

 

Baseball was so dominant over football in the 20s that #3 might have been someone like Lou Gehrig or Rogers Hornsby.

 

3 was probably some racehorse or cabaret dancer

 

Isn't it amazing that Lou Gehrig caught a disease that had the same name as him? What are the chances? He really WAS the luckiest man alive!!

 

Dick Groat had a disease named after him too...pretty cool

 

Definitely a race horse, but I was specifically talking about human athletes.

 

I think you mean Dick Cheese

 

Depends where in the World one was.....in Ireland Mike McTigue was a name everyone would have known after he won the World Title in a Dublin bus depot Vs Battling Siki in 1923.

 

What about the greatest athlete ever, Jim thorpe?

 

He's been airbrushed out of history by Whitey