The price and passion of getting better

Jack Dempsey was too damn good for his own good. So good he needed to fight two men for one payday.

- ROHIT BRIJNATH

This is over a century ago and Dempsey, not yet heavyweight boxing champion, knocks out his rival, Kid Hancock, in 12 seconds and asks for his winnings.

All $5 of it. Forget it, says the promoter, and hands him $2.50. "You put your rival away too fast." So a deal is struck. To get the full money, he must fight Kid Hancock's brother. He does. This takes seconds, too.

It's 2024 now and life in sport remains testing. In January, tennis player Sumit Nagal is telling me about aeroplane seats. When times are tough, he won't pay to buy one, but just arrive at the airport and hope he'll get a good one. Because for him, too, these saved dollars matter.

There's a struggle out there we rarely see. Not just the sweating but the accounting. The harsh arithmetic of sport. The borrowing from dad, the cutting back, the cheap-food diets, the redeye flights. We don't see it because it isn't sexy and anyway we are blinded by the bling of record football transfer fees and $300 million LIV golf seductions.

On the Forbes Rich List you'll never find a shooter, an Olympic sailor, a judoka, a swimmer. They are mostly unfamiliar with prize money but shrug at this lopsided world. You don't choose a sport by what you can earn, but by how intensely it calls you. Like tennis did for the boy from Jhajjar in Haryana.