Settle bet - most famous US athlete, all time

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Even during Babe Ruth's prime years, Jack Dempsey would have been more famous world-wide than him. Much more!

And he was literally forgotten about by the general public by the 1940s/50s.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Huysmans

And he was literally forgotten about by the general public by the 1940s/50s.

No he wasn't

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

No he wasn't

If you believe he was actually more popular than Ruth during his heyday, then this by far is more believable.

[Beercan collector]

OJ

[bnorth]

I would say Jordan by a mile. Everyone knows who he is. Besides baseball people almost nobody knows who Babe Ruth is. Sure many have heard the name but couldn't give you a singe fact about him beside at one time he played baseball. I owned a commercial greenhouse and set up in 3 different towns every week selling at markets for around 5/6 years. Just wearing a pair of Jordans would get comments. We had a Net54 T-Shirt with Babe Ruth on it. I had exactly one person the entire time mention the shirt that I wore many times.

[jingram058]

It's Babe Ruth. Bet settled, period, end of discussion. Even idiots know about Babe Ruth; anyone, any age.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I think the discussion has revealed the ambiguity of the original question. Perhaps the OP may wish to clarify it.

[JollyElm]

And a card...

jackdempsey2.jpg

[Belfast1933]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think the discussion has revealed the ambiguity of the original question. Perhaps the OP may wish to clarify it.

Thx Peter - it was a pretty loose discussion so the question was not super well defined.

But I’ll try now:

If we polled all US adults today and asked them “who is the most famous US athlete in history, who would you say it is?”

Or may be better ways to tighten the question… it’s just for fun, but I think the question above is close to the spirit of my casual family bet.