Mike Jacobs (boxing)

He then bought concession rights on all the boats docked at the Battery, sold train tickets to recent immigrants, and eventually ran his own ferryboats.

[1] In 1933, sportswriters Damon Runyon, Ed Frayne, and Bill Farnsworth of the Hearst newspaper chain arranged for Jacobs to stage Hearst's annual Milk Fund boxing benefit at the Bronx Coliseum; Jacobs promised the charity a substantially better cut of the proceeds than the event's prior promoter, Madison Square Garden.

[5] With this experience, Jacobs and the three sportswriters founded the Twentieth Century Sporting Club, a rival boxing promotion franchise to that of Madison Square Garden, later in 1933.

[2] Jacobs' boxing promotion career changed forever in 1935, when he met with the management team of then up-and-coming African American heavyweight contender Joe Louis.

[6][7] Meeting at the Frog Club, a colored nightclub, Jacobs and the Louis team and hammered out a three-year exclusive boxing promotion deal.

[2] In September 1944, Jacobs secured the first commercial sponsorship of a television boxing match—the Featherweight title bout between Willie Pep and Chalky Wright.

[2] Jacobs suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1946 but remained the head of the organization, with his relative Sol Strauss operating the club on a day-to-day basis.