The Victory Tour was a concert tour by the Jacksons, from July to December 1984. It was the only tour with all six Jackson brothers, although Jackie was injured for some of it. The group performed 55 concerts to an audience of approximately 2.5 million. Of the 55 locations performed at, 53 were large stadiums. Most came to see Michael, whose album Thriller was dominating the music world at the time. Many regard it as a tour for Thriller, with most of the songs on the set list coming from Michael's albums Thriller and Off the Wall. The tour reportedly grossed approximately $75 million ($ million in dollars) and set a new record for the highest-grossing tour. It showcased Michael's single decorated glove, black sequined jacket, and moonwalk. The tour was choreographed by Paula Abdul, and promoted by Don King. Although it was billed as a "world tour", all shows were staged in the United States and Canada.
Despite its focus on Michael, the tour was named after the Jacksons' album Victory. The album was released four days before the tour's first show in Kansas City and turned out to be a commercial success. However, besides some ad libbing during the show's encore, none of the album's songs were performed on the tour. Jermaine had a successful new album out as well (Jermaine Jackson, also known as Dynamite, which had been released in April 1984) and some material from that album was performed. According to Marlon, Michael refused to rehearse or perform any of the songs from Victory and was also reluctant on embarking on the tour himself; it took his mother Katherine and fans to persuade him before he finally agreed. Marlon also stated that Michael had only reluctantly joined his brothers, who needed the income while he himself did not. On the tour, tensions between Michael and his brothers increased so much that at the December 9 concert he announced that it would be the last time they would perform together, ending plans for a European and Australian leg of the tour in the spring and summer of 1985.
The Jacksons and Don King still made money from the tour. Michael donated his share to several charities as he had promised prior to the tour, but the rancor between him and his brothers had a deep and lasting effect on the Jacksons as a family, alienating him from them for most of his later life, and effectively ended the Jacksons as a performing group. The Jacksons made one more album in 1989, but Michael and Marlon only participated in one song on it, and aside from the concert celebrating Michael's thirty years as a solo artist in 2001, they never toured again during Michael's lifetime. The tour was also a financial disaster for promoter Chuck Sullivan and his father Billy; the losses from the tour eventually forced them to sell the New England Patriots football team they owned after Foxboro Stadium, the team's home field, lapsed into bankruptcy.
Background
In November 1983, the Jacksons announced plans for a major tour in 1984 at a press conference, with boxing promoter Don King offering $3 million ($ million in dollars) in upfront advances. That spring, the Victory album had been recorded, to be released shortly before the tour itself.
At the time the tour was announced, the Jacksons had not lined up a promoter for the shows. In the spring of 1984, Chuck Sullivan, son of Billy Sullivan, owner of the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL), went to Los Angeles to see if he could get the Jacksons to choose the team's home, Foxboro Stadium, which the family also owned, for the group's Boston-area shows. After using his financial and legal expertise to help his father regain control of the team he had founded and built in the wake of a 1974 boardroom coup, the younger Sullivan, who had promoted concerts as an undergraduate at Boston College and during his United States Army service in Thailand, had begun staging concerts at the stadium to generate extra income for the team.
The set list included songs from the Jacksons' albums Destiny and Triumph. Despite the name of the tour, the Victory album was not represented. There were also songs on the list from Jermaine's and Michael's solo careers. Songs from Michael's albums Off the Wall and Thriller were both represented. The set list did not include "Thriller" itself because Michael did not like the way the song sounded live, but it was later performed regularly during Michael's solo tours. "State of Shock" was also rehearsed during a soundcheck but was never performed (although a snippet of Michael's vocal can be heard in leaked footage of the concert in Toronto). Jermaine sometimes performed the song "Dynamite" during his solo segment in place of the usual "You Like Me, Don't You?".
Planning and organization At a meeting, Frank DiLeo, a vice president of the Jacksons' label, Epic Records, told Sullivan that the group's talks with its original promoter had broken down and they were seeking a replacement. Sensing an opportunity, Sullivan returned to Boston and began putting together the financing to allow Stadium Management Corp. (SMC), the Patriots' subsidiary that operated Foxboro Stadium, to promote the entire Victory Tour. Initially he partnered with Eddie DeBartolo, then-owner of another NFL team, the San Francisco 49ers, in putting together a bid offering the Jacksons two-thirds of the tour's gross revenue against a guaranteed $40 million ($ million in modern dollars).
DeBartolo withdrew from the bid when he began to see the deal as too risky. Sullivan persevered by himself, and in late April DiLeo told him at another meeting in Los Angeles that SMC, which had never handled a tour, would be the promoter of the year's most eagerly anticipated concert tour, expected to gross $70–80 million. The deal was very generous to the Jacksons. Sullivan had agreed that they would receive 83.4% of gross potential ticket revenues, which meant in practical terms that the group would be paid as if the show had sold out regardless of whether it actually did. That percentage was at least 25 points above what was at that time the industry standard for artists on tour.
Sullivan also guaranteed the Jacksons an advance of $36.6 million ($ million in modern dollars). He put Foxboro Stadium up as collateral for a $12.5 million loan to pay the first installment shortly before the tour started. The balance was due two weeks later.
The month after winning the tour bid, Sullivan approached stadium managers at the NFL's meetings, many of whom were there to bid for future Super Bowls. He sought changes to their usual arrangements with touring performers in order to make the Victory Tour more profitable. Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Chiefs, agreed to accept only a $100,000 fee for the three opening concerts instead of its usual percentage of ticket sales and concessions. The Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, provided nearly half a million dollars' worth of free goods and services. Ultimately, 26 of the 55 dates were played in 17 stadiums that were home to NFL teams. But some others balked at Sullivan's demands. To use John F. Kennedy Stadium, Sullivan asked the city of Philadelphia for almost $400,000 in tax breaks and subsidies. Among them were free hotel rooms and suites for all tour workers, free use of the stadium and waiver of concession revenue. He said the Jacksons' presence would generate revenue that would make up the difference, but the city stood firm on some provisions.
Outside of negotiations, Sullivan's behavior on tour embarrassed the Jacksons on some occasions. At Washington's Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, he forgot his pass and was denied entry. Sullivan was particularly humiliated when the board of selectmen in Foxboro, Massachusetts, where his family's team and stadium were located, uncharacteristically denied a permit for the concert, citing "the unknown element". This was not only a major personal embarrassment for Sullivan, but also a crippling financial blow as it denied the family the use of the only facility where they would have kept all of the revenue from sources such as concessions and parking.
News writers suggested in retrospect that the board's decision was racially motivated. It was also stated that there had been continuing security concerns about the stadium during Patriots' games and previous concerts, but the board had never denied permits on that basis before. Others pointed the possibility of lobbying from the Sullivans' business rivals, since the family had accumulated many enemies in the state of Massachusetts over years of often bitter struggle to keep control of the Patriots. In any case, Sullivan was acutely aware that staging any sort of large event in Massachusetts at the time was considered a privilege utterly dependent on the goodwill of the board of selectmen, and thus was in no position to antagonize them further by challenging their decision.
To help defray the tour's costs, the Jacksons sought a corporate sponsor. They had all but concluded a lucrative deal with Quaker Oats when King came to them with a deal he had already signed with Pepsi. Although it would pay them less money, the brothers were acutely aware that King was able and willing to shut down the entire tour if he were crossed. They thus had no choice but to take the deal with Pepsi and break off talks with Quaker.
Part of the deal arranged by King was that Michael, who did not drink Pepsi, would have to do two television commercials. He made sure that his face appeared minimally in them to avoid overexposing his image, much to King's annoyance. During filming of one of the two commercials, Michael suffered second and third degree burns on his scalp when a pyrotechnic effect malfunctioned, catching his hair on fire. Many people, including friends and associates of Michael, believe this incident is what sparked his later problems with prescription drug abuse.
Ticket controversy and other business issues King, Sullivan and the Jacksons' father, Joe Jackson (who no longer managed any of his sons by that point), came up with a way to generate additional revenue from ticket sales. Those wishing to attend would have to send a postal money order for $120 ($ in dollars) along with a special form to a lottery to buy blocks of four tickets at $30 apiece (US$ in dollars), ostensibly to curtail scalpers. Upon receipt the money was to be deposited into a standard money market account earning 7% annual interest; it would take six to eight weeks for the lottery to be held and money to be refunded to the unsuccessful purchasers. Since only one in ten purchasers would win the lottery and receive tickets, there would be more money in the bank for that time period than there were tickets to sell, and they expected to earn $10–12 million in interest.
Joe, Jermaine, Marlon, Jackie, Tito and Randy were in favor of the plan, but Michael was not and warned them that it would be a public relations disaster. The $30 ticket price was already higher than most touring acts (such as Prince and Bruce Springsteen) charged at the time and was compounded by the requirement to buy four. This put tickets out of reach of many of Michael's African-American fans who were not financially secure. That community was joined by many commentators in the media in vociferously criticizing the Jacksons over the plan. Nevertheless, when newspapers published the form for tickets to the first show in Kansas City in late June, fans lined up at stores before they opened to buy them. A local radio disk jockey said some newspapers were even stolen from lawns.
The ticket price remained unchanged. At a press conference, King justified the $30 price as appropriate and stated that he did not blame the promoters for charging that price, adding that "you must understand, you get what you pay for."
Financial difficulties