Michael Jordan’s 60th birthday: his life after basketball and how he became the richest athlete in history

It has been almost 20 years since he last played a game Michael Jeffrey Giordano, which this Friday celebrates its 60th birthday. Six NBA titles with Chicago Bulls, five regular season MVP awards and six Finals MVP awards, 32,292 regular season points, 10 league-leading scoring seasons, and two Olympic titles with the US team (Los Angeles 1984 and Barcelona 1992) marked a career that has led him to be considered by many as the best basketball player of all time. And, with no room for subjectivities, he turned it into the richest athlete in history.

Jordan played his last game on April 16, 2003. That night, 21,257 people gave him a standing ovation as he left the field of play one last time at Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center with 1:44 remaining in the game that his team, the Washington Wizards (of which he was a part owner and had been president of operations), lost 107-87 to the 76ers. He started off with 15 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists in 28 minutes. And he never wore shorts and a tank top again.

- Advertisement -

Since then, Jordan has played golf, ridden high-capacity motorcycles, divorced his first wife, Juanita Vanoy (with whom he has three children: Jeffrey, Marcus, and Jasmine) in 2006, married Yvette Prieto in 2013, has had her twin daughters (Victoria and Ysabel) a year later, was inducted into the Springfield Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2016, and has seen some of the less righteous aspects of her life exposed. the documentary series The Last Dance in 2020. At the same time, he kept running the huge economic machine he started building nearly four decades ago.

According to the specialized magazine Forbes, Jordan has assets valued at 1,700 million dollars, which places him in 1,729th place in the millionaires ranking drawn up annually by the magazine and led by Elon Musk (219,000 million). He was the first athlete to amass a ten-figure fortune, and despite not playing in 20 years, remains one of three athletes with a net worth that size, alongside Tiger Woods (1.1 billion) and LeBron James (1 billion). ). ). His fortune reached 2.1 billion in 2020, fell to 1.6 billion in 2021 due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and rose again in 2022.

Though he owes his entire emporium to basketball, only a fraction was built with the orange ball in his hands: The shooting guard earned a $94 million gross during 13 seasons with the Chicago Bulls and two years with the Washington Wizards, plus the $4 million was paid by the Bulls when he left the team in the 1993/94 season to try his hand at baseball (he played one year for the Birmingham Barons, an affiliate of the Chicago White Sox). In his 15 active seasons, he was the highest-paid player in the NBA in only two. The first time was in 1996/97, by which time he had already won four titles and four MVP awards.

His main sources of income were endorsement deals with companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Gatorade, Chevrolet and Rayovac, some of which have kept the connection since his retirement and still do today. These have allowed him to make an estimated $1,800 million in gross since the start of his career.

Among those megacorporations that have accompanied him, Nike has always stood out, with which in 1984 he signed his first five-year contract, which provided for a fee of $500,000 per season. Since then, and since the birth of Air Jordan shoes, the paths have never separated. The sportswear company has even turned the Jordan line into an independent division of its structure. According to Forbes, the former player received $130 million from Nike in 2019, four times more than the company paid LeBron James that year.

As restless as he is on the court, Jordan has invested his fortune in several areas. His main bet was his return to the NBA, three years after his retirement, as a shareholder of the then Charlotte Bobcats: on July 15, 2006 he bought, through the company MJ Basketball Holdings, a minority stake in the franchise which had an average businessman Robert Johnson as majority owner. As part of the deal, he assumed the role of general manager of basketball operations.

Four years later and thanks to a $175 million investment, Jordan increases his stake to 90% and becomes the first majority owner of an NBA team that was previously a player. Although he sold 20% of the shares to investors Gabe Plotkin and Daniel Sundheim in September 2019, he still retains that status. In these years and in this role he seems to have forgotten part of his past: in 2011 he was one of the toughest starters to lead the lockout of the bosses when a new collective agreement was negotiated which reduced players’ participation in revenues by 57%. at 50%

Basketball wasn’t the only sport he invested in: In August 2017, he participated in Major League Baseball’s (MLB) acquisition of the Miami Marlins. While most of the $1.2 billion paid for the Florida franchise came from investor Bruce Sherman, Jordan kept 1%, and former ballplayer Derek Jeter, a friend of his, 4%.

Not satisfied, he also tried his hand at motor sports. In 2004 he founded Michael Jordan Motorsports, a team of which he was the visible face and main shareholder, and which for 10 years participated in the Superbike championship of the American Motorcycle Association (AMA), the main motorcycle event in the country. In that decade, the team managed just one win.

In September 2020 he made the leap from two to four wheels: together with the driver Denny Hamlin he formed the 23XI Racing team to participate, starting in 2021, in the NASCAR Cup Series, the most important touring car category in the United States. Participated. The team took its first two wins in 2022 and this year stepped in with two Toyotas driven by Bubba Wallace (he wears the iconic number 23, which Jordan wore on his jersey) and Tyler Reddick.

The former Bulls guard hasn’t just invested his money in this: he’s also invested in a startup (Gigster), a sports betting company (DraftKings), a sports data provider (Sportradar), a electronics (Muzik) and, together with Magic Johnson, in an eSports team (Team Liquid). He also owns a car dealership, five restaurants and a tequila factory (Cincoro), a business he shares with three other NBA team owners: Jeanie Buss, of the Los Angeles Lakers; Wyc Grousbeck of the Boston Celtics and Wes Edens of the Milwaukee Bucks.

In addition to business, Jordan has also donated some of his money to charity. This Wednesday, on his 60th birthday, she donated $10 million to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, whose mission is to grant the wishes of children ages 2 to 18 who suffer from severe illnesses.

“I can’t think of a better birthday present than to see others join me in supporting Make-A-Wish so that all children can experience the magic of making wishes come true. Witnessing their strength and resilience during such difficult times in their lives has been truly inspirational,” said the former basketball player, who has been with the Arizona-based organization since 1989 and has been its Chief Wish Ambassador since 2008.

In the two decades since his retirement, Jordan has also contributed funds to assist those affected by various natural phenomena (such as hurricanes Florence, in 2018, and Dorian, in 2019) and for the construction of two health centers in Charlotte. . In 2020, amidst the George Floyd killing spree, he announced that he would donate $100 million over 10 years to organizations dedicated to “ensuring racial equality, social justice and greater access to ‘instruction”. And he has also given the benefits that corresponded to various organizations The Last Dance.