‘Making the pros pay’ for amateur sports: the Ontario Athletic Commission, 1920–1947^†

Abstract

The capitalist sports-media complex is heavily subsidized in many countries. Teams, leagues and their corporate partners enjoy state-donated land and stadia, favourable tax rates, legislative and judicial relief from antitrust requirements, the player and fan development systems of state-supported playgrounds, schools, colleges and universities, and the legitimation of public ceremonies. They claim these benefits on the basis of the economic spin-offs they generate and the ‘branding’ of cities and regions they headline. But in an earlier political tradition these expectations were reversed. Both sports entrepreneurs and professional athletes were expected to contribute financially to the development of amateur and community sport, on the grounds that it is these programmes that train the players and educate the fans on which capitalist sport depends. One such example was the tax on professional sport levied during the interwar years by the Ontario Athletic Commission (OAC), the subject of this paper. The OAC was the very first state sports body in Canada, and in many ways it set the mould for the state-directed and state-financed programmes of the federal and provincial governments today, although the tax on professional sports no longer exists. The paper was written in 1994, while I was still a member of the board of the publicly owned Stadium Corporation of Ontario, which operated Toronto's SkyDome.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the assistance of Helen Gurney, Tim Hutton, Jim Worrall, Tom West, Rae Fleming, Cheryl Reilly of Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, and the helpful staff of the Archives of Ontario. Of course, any errors and omissions are mine.

Notes

^†Originally published in Ontario History 87, no. 2 (1995): 105–27.

^1.Campagnolo, ‘Back to the Kitchen Table?’.

^2. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, February 11, 1881, 935–40.

^3. Canada, the Senate, Debates, December 13, 1880, 52.

^4.R. v. Wildfong and Lang (1911), 17 CCC 251 (Ont. CC).

^5.Steele v. Maber (1901), 6 CCC 446 (Que. Mag. Court); R. v. Littlejohn (1904) CCC 212 (NB Co. C.); R. v. Wildfong and Lang; R. v. Fitzgerald (1912), 19 CCC 145 (Ont. Co. C.); R. v. Pelkey (1913) 12 DLR 780 (Alba. Sc); R. v. Fleming and Wallace (1916), 30 DLR 418 (Que. Mag. Court). It was no easy matter for the provincial police to enforce the distinction between sparring and fighting to win; see correspondence between Premier James Whitney and Superintendent J.E. Rogers, January 1910, RG23, E85, 1.1, Archives of Ontario (AO).

^6.R. v. Littlejohn; Montreal Herald. November 11, 1909.

^7.R. v. Pelkey.

^8.Bithel v. Butler (1918) 30 CCC 275 (Que. SC).

^9. Thomas Foster, ‘Why Our Soldiers Learn to Box’, Outing 72 (May 1918): 114–6.

^10.Bathrick, ‘Max Schmeling on the Canvas’.

^11.Sammons, Beyond the Ring, 16–29; Ries, ‘In the Ring and Out’.

^12.Amateur Athletic Union of Canada, Minutes of the Reconstruction Committee, RG28 150 I, National Archives of Canada.

^13.Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 322–6.

^14. Amateur Athletic Union of Canada, Minutes of the Reconstruction Committee, RG28 150 I, National Archives of Canada.

^15. SO 1919, ch. 55, 336–8. The grants seem to have contributed to the rapid expansion of public sports facilities across Ontario; see Metcalfe, ‘Urban Response to the Demand’.

^16.Tennyson, ‘Ontario General Election of 1919; Oliver, Public and Private Persons, 16–43.

^17.Staples, ‘Genesis of the United Farmers’.

^18.Oliver, Public and Private Persons, 69; Johnston, E.C. Drury: Agrarian Idealist, 51–82.

^19. ‘Pro Boxing Men Favor Commission’, Toronto Daily Star, April 15, 1920. See also ‘Favor Control of Ring Sport’, The Globe, April 15, 1920.

^20. ‘Boxing Bill Finds Favor’, The Globe, April 22, 1920.

^21. ‘Would Teach Boxing in Ontario Schools’, Toronto Daily Star, April 6, 1920.

^22. ‘Value of Sports in Common Welfare’, Toronto Daily Star, May 3, 1920.

^23. ‘Boxing Commission Bill Introduced’ and “Boxing Bill Becomes Law,” The Globe, May 8 and 27, 1920.

^24. SC 1933, ch. 53, 287.

^25.Ontario Athletic Commission, ‘Rules and Regulations of Professional Boxing and Wrestling in Ontario, 1920’, RG49, 1-7, B2, AO.

^26. OAC, Minutes of the Meeting of December 28, 1921.

^27. OAC, Annual Report for 1920–1921.

^28. OAC, Annual Report for 1923–1924.

^29. SO 1920, ch. 30, 164–6.

^30. SO 1923, ch. 19, 48–9.

^31.Casell, ‘History of the Development’, 19–29; Morrow, ‘The Strathcona Trust in Ontario’.

^32. OAC, Annual Report for 1921–1922.

^33. OAC, Annual Report, 1922–1923.

^34. OAC, Annual Report, 1927–1928.

^35. Ibid; N.A. Beach, ‘Background to the Ontario High School Track and Field Championship Meets’, personal communication, November 17, 1980.

^36. OAC, Annual Report for 1928–1929.

^37. OAC, Annual Report for 1929–1930.

^38. For example, in 1923, when the 5% gate tax yielded $5275.54, the income from licences and fines were $5463.15. In 1928, the 2% tax produced $4364.20, while fees and fines totalled $6448.66.

^39. ‘Future of Province Declared Dependent on Healthy Boyhood’, The Globe, February 26, 1927; SO 1927, ch. 72, 585–6.

^40. The regulations are described in ‘Ontario to Enforce New Athletic Laws’, Toronto Star, June 29, 1927.

^41. ‘Scanning the Sports Field’, The Globe, February 16, 1927.

^42. OAC, Annual Report for 1928–1929.

^43. Duncan McArthur, deputy minister of education, ‘Memorandum regarding the Ontario Athletic Commission’, November 21, 1934, RG3, box 261, AO.

^44. Margaret Lord, interview by author, July 4, 1989; ‘Girl WAAF Camp’ (in author's possession); ‘Northern Ontario Girls to Attend Athletic Camp’, unidentified clippings in Gladys Gigg Ross Scrapbook; OAC, Annual Report, 1938–1939.

^45. ‘Murphy and Price Expected to Resign’, TheMail and Empire, April 14, 1933.

^46. ‘Harry Price Named in “Toll Gate” Charges’, Chatham Daily News, May 10, 1934.

^47. ‘Charge Papers Lifted by Mysterious Hands from Board's Records’, Toronto Star, October 12, 1934.

^48. Harry Price Files, Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

^49. All but 1 of the 11 other recommendations address the appointment and responsibilities of commissioners and the financial management of revenues and expenses. Walters also proposed the establishment of appeal procedures for anyone fined by the commission. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Administration of the Ontario Athletic Commission, January 15, 1935, RG18, AO. The details of clandestine payments and private deals, along with an earnest debate on the ‘honesty’ of wrestling, are available in the transcript of public hearings.

^50.Hepburn Correspondence, R.C. Buckley to Hepburn, August 17, 1936, AO.

^51.J.J. Heagerty, ‘History of the National Fitness Movement’, c.1939, RG65-15, 15-36-2-11, AO; Harvey, ‘Sport Policy and the Welfare State’.

^52.Guest, Emergence of Social Security, 83–141.

^53. Canada, Special Committee on Social Security, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, no. 1, March 16, 1943, 32–4.

^54.Finkel, ‘Paradise Postponed’, 137.

^55. Canada, National Physical Fitness Council, Minutes of the Second Meeting, August 29–30, 1944.

^56.Casell, ‘History of the Development’, 26–7.

^57.Finkel, ‘Paradise Postponed’.

^58.Pogue and Taylor, ‘History of Provincial Government Services’. Leishman subsequently became the director of the community programs branch.

^59.Pogue and Taylor, ‘History of Provincial Government Services’, 3–30.

^60. Ontario, Legislature of Ontario, Debates, April 1, 1947, 680–2; SO 1947, ch. 4, 19–24.

^61. Legislature of Ontario, Debates, March 11, 1949, 788–93; SO ch. 7, 25–6. The previous year, the province had taken advantage of the repeal of the federal amusement tax to levy one of its own, at 20%, upon admissions to movie houses, night clubs, and professional sports events. The revenues were designated for Ontario hospitals. The repeal of the gate tax meant that all ‘amusements’ paid the same rate. In 1951, the tax was lowered to 12.5% and redirected to general revenue. See Perry, Taxes, Tariffs, and Subsidies, 489; Ontario Committee on Taxation, ‘Report’, vol. 3, Toronto, 1967, 282–7. The application of the amusement tax touched off a fierce debate about what constituted a ‘professional’; see especially Legislature of Ontario, Debates, March 13–15, 1950.

^62. ‘Speaking on Sport’, Toronto Star, March 7, 1949.

^63. L. O'Connor, Interview by author, February 20, 1995.

^64. I. McInnis, Interview by author, June 27, 1989.

^65. H.H. Gurney. Gurney to J.F. Kinlin, January 28, 1972, author's possession.

^66.AO, RG 10-1-1, box 22, file 13, H. Price to M. Dymond, December 11, 1959.

^67. An Act to provide for the Establishment of The Ontario Physical Fitness Institute was drafted on February 20, 1960. See also Order-in-Council 1187/1960, March 17, 1960. Senator Joe Sullivan, the goalkeeper on Canada's victorious 1928 Olympic ice hockey team, wanted to be appointed to the committee. Price said no, so Frost said no. M. M. Dymond, Dymond to Frost, March 24, 1960.

^68. Ontario, ‘Report of the Ontario Physical Fitness Study Committee’. April 14, 1961.

^69. Jim Vipond, ‘Action Needed on Physical Training Front’, TheGlobe and Mail, April 25, 1961; Frost correspondence, H. Price to J. Frost, April 28, 1961, RG3, series E-16-a, box 43, AO.

^70. ‘Grant for Sports Promised by PM’, TheGlobe and Mail, August 28, 1961.

^71. J. Diefenbaker, in discussion with the author, July 17, 1976.