The Polo Grounds contest between the Bears and Giants solidified the New York franchise’s bottom line.
Getting special attractions to sell tickets took place in the heyday of the Roman Colosseum in 82 AD and in Manhattan’s Polo Grounds in 1925 AD.
The New York Football Giants franchise was ready to go under but was saved on December 6th, 1925 because the most famous college football star of the era joined the Chicago Bears and played a game in New York. His name was Harold “Red” Grange and he was an illegally signed player by the Bears franchise owner George Halas. Halas took his team on an eight game, 12-day barnstorming trip across the country. The National Football League of 1925 was at best a motley crew of players on semi-professional teams. In 1925, five new franchises were admitted to the NFL. Tim Mara bought the rights to a New York franchise for $500 (about $9,250 today). The others that came in were the Detroit Panthers, the new Canton Bulldogs, and the Pottsville Maroons, the most successful independent pro team of the time. After the season, Grange, before his college eligibility was up at the University of Illinois, signed a deal with Halas. The Grange signing clearly violated NFL rules against signing players before they completed their college eligibility, but the signing of Grange, and a national barnstorming tour of the Bears may have saved the NFL.
Mara was a bookie. By age 18 in 1905, Mara had his own established and legal bookmaking operation, primarily at Belmont Park racetrack in Elmont. Shady characters were just part of the NFL landscape in those days. The NFL wanted a team in New York City and welcomed Mara. Mara took a finance bath and Mara could not absorb the reported $40,000 debt (about $741,000 today) that his business took on. Mara wanted Grange thinking he could be a financial savior as New York City was a college football hotbed. But Halas got him first.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1925, a crowd of 36,000, the largest in pro football history, watched Grange and the Bears play the Chicago Cardinals at Wrigley Field. At the beginning of December, the Bears team went on an eight game, 12-day barnstorming tour in St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Detroit and back to Chicago.
On December 6th, a crowd of 73,000 saw the Bears play the Giants at the Polo Grounds. Grange’s presence was a box office spectacular with the ticket sales revenue totaling $143,000 (about $2.7 million today). Mara was out of the red and made a profit. Grange was paid $30,000 (about $555,000 today) for the game. After the game, Mara never looked back.
Grange helped save the NFL but the National Football League never repaid the debt. Grange tried to get a franchise in the NFL in 1926 and was denied. The league told Grange and his partner C. C. Pyle to play in Brooklyn but Pyle had a deal to play in Yankee Stadium. The typical NFL thank you for help even back then but Grange did form a team in the American Football League called the New York Yankees. That team was absorbed by the NFL in 1927 after the AFL folded. Grange suffered a severe knee injury in 1927 while playing for the Yankees. He was never the same. The Yankees lasted one more season.
The Football Giants owe a debt to Grange, he saved Mara’s business. The Giants should have retired the number 77 years ago honoring Grange. Without Red Grange, there might not have been a New York Giants franchise in 1926 and beyond.
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One hundred years ago Red Grange “saved” the Giants franchise.
