Building the Garden and Making Arena Sports Big Time: “Tex” Rickard and His Legacy in Sport Marketing

Foreshadowing the beginning of the Great Depression, George “Tex” Rickard succumbed to appendicitis in 1929. A leader and representative of sport marketing during the 1920s, Rickard altered the urban landscape in American cities by definitively showing that promoters could use sports in arenas (i.e., indoor) to help those venues be economically viable through the production of awe-inspiring spectacles. In this article, the authors critically examine sport marketing as a tool to help reframe the career of Tex Rickard and ultimately the development of Madison Square Garden III in the context of macromarketing. This historical and illustrative case study will also demonstrate that sport marketing is somewhat different than traditional marketing through an emphasis on media and community relations. Finally, we will show how Rickard made use of the traditional “marketing mix” (i.e., place, price, promotion, and product) to capitalize on the urban setting and other strategies employed to promote products and services.