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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   Major sports stars have promited tobacco to booze    List Jim Trautman Next   Sports figures part of ad campaigns since late 1800s   By Jim Trautman Albert Goodwill Spalding is one of the giant figures in the establishment of professional baseball. Not only was he one of the greatest pitcher in its infancy, but he gained fame as an entrepreneurial genius in growing the game for the masses.   Spalding founded a sporting goods empire (see the picture of Jackie Parker), released a yearly baseball guide and took barnstorming teams of players around the world.   In 1874, he organized and took a team from Philadelphia and Boston on a worldwide tour.   Spalding, early on, recognized that advertising products would connect the owners, players and the public and assist the game and sponsoring games to become a money-making business.   The first major companies that began to link their companies with sports personalities and teams were the tobacco companies. Tobacco companies not only became involved in baseball, but also cricket, boxing, auto racing, hockey and football. In fact, anything connected to sports would find tobacco advertisements featuring a famous player of a specific sport.   In the late 1870s, the first cigarette cards appeared in the United States. In about 1888, British companies began to issue various types of cigarette cards to entice customers to buy their products. Cigarette cards in the millions have been issued by various companies in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany. At first, tobacco companies recognized that a stiff piece of cardboard was required in the pack to keep the cigarettes from coming apart. The first cardboard pieces were blank and then someone hit upon the idea that since there were hundreds of different tobacco companies, give customers a reason to buy your product and, more importantly, create repeat customers.   The first sports cards at the turn of the 20th Century were of boxers, golfers, generals and baseball players, issued by tobacco companies. The most valuable tobacco picture card today is the famous Honus Wagner, which has sold for $1 million. Only about 12 are believed to still exist.   Wagner did not smoke and asked that his picture card be removed from the set.   In 1910, the Imperial Tobacco Company issued what is believed to be the first set of hockey cards. The set of 36 cards featured Art Ross, Newsy Lalonde, Cyclone Taylor, and sells in the $8,000 range.   The following year, a larger set containing 45 cards was issued. It sells today for $9,000.   The front of the card is a beautiful painting of the player in his team uniform. On the back, the player's career information.   Of course, in the day to have any hope of making a complete set one had to continue to purchase Imperial Tobacco products.   For six years in the 1930s, hockey players appeared not on cigarette cards, but on matchbook covers. Various players from the teams of the period appeared and the card value today depends on the player pictured, but usually average $35.   As baseball became the sport of the common man advertisements for hundreds of products connecting baseball, players and the various teams appeared during the baseball season.   In 1910, John J. McGraw, the famous manager of the New York Giants, appeared on advertisements for Tuxedo - “The perfect tobacco for pipe and cigarette.” Other players appeared for shirt collars, stays, suspenders and even socks.   The connection to sports figures and smoking continued on into the 1960s. The back cover of the February 1948 issue of Popular Mechanics pictures famous New York Ranger Cal Gardner smoking a Camel cigarette.   “More people are smoking Camels than ever before including doctors,” says the ad. At the height of the 1954 Major League Baseball season, 16 major league players are pictured on the back of True - the Man’s Magazine. Yogi Berra, Harvey Kuenn, Richie Ashburn, Jackie Jensen and others each have a Camel cigarette in their hand.   Another major advertising area involved various liquor and soda companies picturing famous players or events in a sporting match.   The Christmas issues of True - The Man’s Magazine feature a “Precious Moment in Sports.” One year it was a story and painting of Red Grange - “The Galloping Ghost” and his college football career in the 1920s, which was the “Golden Age of Sports in America.” The ad closes with “For your precious moments ask for PM Whiskey tonight.”   The Coca- Cola Company has become a major advertiser for sporting events and many of their ads feature famous players from all sports. As early as 1914 the company had full page ads in American Boy magazine. Players pictured included Walter Johnson, Joe Tinker, “Home Run” Baker.   Christy Matheson says, “Go ahead and use his name endorsing it. Big Six knows a good and delicious thirst quencher when he sees it.”   The ads, depending on the player pictured, range from $25 to $60 today. Many valuable Coca-Cola sports ads do not even feature a famous player. Ads were printed for local high school football teams and placed in the local restaurant, or as they were known, malt shops. The cardboard ad has a hot dog, French fries and a glass of Coca-Cola.   Most of these 1940s cardboard ads feature small-town teams and sell today in the $130 each range.   The world of collecting sports advertising is very large and diverse. Pick up a copy of the 1931 opening day program of the new Maple Leaf Gardens. Programs, of course, are an advertisement in their own genre, but one looks in wonder at the many ads for products, stores and future events.   “Fans and Fanettes may disagree on the game, but all agree on the superiority of Neilson’s Jersey Milk chocolate bar.”   Wilson’s Hockey Equipment, built to stand the test, uniforms, hockey, skiing, basketball.” The Harold A. Wilson Company Limited, 299 Yonge Street, Toronto.   An ad for DeForest Crosley radio screams, “Scores Again.”   The original program from that first game sells for several thousand, but in 1996, to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Gardens and the 25th anniversary of the Toronto Sun, 20,000 copies were printed. The reprint copies, with a special cover, sell for $20.   Besides programs, special magazines have appeared through the past 100 years that focus on sports.   Spalding Baseball Guides, Sports Illustrated, Hockey Digest, the Hockey News. Collecting material connected to advertising in Canada alone is immense.   One book that details hockey material from 1910 - 1990 is the Vintage Hockey Collector, by Bobby Burrell.   It is filled with hundreds of photos of various types of hockey collectibles. Many of the items, gum and candy hockey cards, were issued as advertisements for a product. One of the most famous is the yearly Bee Hive Hockey Photos issued by the St. Lawrence Starch Company. The product connected to the photos was corn syrup for your morning cereal.   Other companies have been involved and one of the more valuable items are the 1961-62 York Peanut Butter glasses. There were only 11 glasses in the set - Montreal Canadiens (4), Toronto Maple Leafs (4) and Detroit Red Wings (3). Today's value for a complete set is $4,200. The original ad for the glasses sells for $200 or more.   I don't have space to write about ads for late 1940s for table hockey games, but one manufactured by the Reliable Toy Company of Toronto features Foster Hewitt at the radio microphone, and reads: “Hello Canada, Here's the Most Exciting Game You Can Play.”   An entire book can be written on the history of sports advertisements. This article has not even scratched the surface.   Photographs   1 - A 1956 back cover of True Magazine tobacco ad with MLB players   2 - Jackie Parker on front cover of 1958-59 Spalding catalogue   3 - A Rolaids ad with a Major League Baseball flavour     Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2011 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster