Michael Jordan: Most valuable player

26:03The most famous player ever to play the game, the greatest player ever to play the game, just to turn around at the height of his fame and say, I'm out, just stunned America. So we have to say at this point as well that Michael's sister, Dolores, actually accused her dad of sexually abusing her between the ages of 8 and 16 in her memoir. So the family life was clearly very complicated. but it was the rumours of this kind of grief of you know the family kind of being torn apart burnout from all the media intrusion into his private life that fueled like his resignation from the NBA. Yeah and there was a book that came out around this time called the Jordan Rules and it had tales of his tyrannical behaviour, bullying behaviour towards his teammates, how he would verbally abuse the general manager of the Bulls that time, Jerry Krause.

26:50He was prone to verbal tirades against some players. He would pick some out for particular abuse. And if you watch that Netflix series, you can see that some of his teammates live in terror of him. Yeah, they literally clam up and tense up when he walks into a room. It's quite something to see. And I think one of the things that also sticks out is that he was actually just quite mean to people. He actually called Jerry Krause, who was a little bit overweight, they used to call him crumbs, as in you eat so much, you leave crumbs on your shirt. He had a famous spat with a guy called Isaiah Thomas who played for the Detroit Pistons.

27:27It was rumoured that when the professional team went to the Olympic Games, because he didn't get on with Isaiah Thomas, who's one of the great players of all time as well, he managed to get him excluded from the team. He bought Charles Barkley, who was another famous player, a diamond earring because he knew he was going to play against him and he thought this would give him one up because Charles Barkley would be so grateful he wouldn't play so well against him. and he says he thinks he's my friend. I actually hate that fat F-U-C-K. Yeah, I mean, he really doesn't come off like a nice person.

27:58But then, you know, some people will say, do you have to be nice to be one of the greatest athletes of all time? Does that actually hold you back? Maybe it's a requirement that you have to be that kind of all-conquering, slightly bullying, slightly demanding, only the best will do kind of player. But I don't get the sense that Lionel Messi is particularly like that, but maybe I'm wrong. Who knows? I mean, the idea that you have to be manipulative and controlling and kind of exert your will on everyone else. It's kind of also a billionaire trait, I would say. Yeah, definitely. I mean, we saw that with people like Jeff Bezos.

28:35We've seen it with people like Philip Green, for example, the retail tycoon. He was very prone to verbal abuse. In fact, he did little else. So anyway, there's an intense focus on his private life. You've got people pointing out his tyrannical behaviour. His gambling comes into focus at this point. And I have to admit, I was shocked to read about the gambling because, you know, why would you be making so much money only to be just tossing it down a black pit? At that time, he was playing golf with his buddies and playing for like$10 ,000 per hole. Frequent golfing partner Richard Esquinas released a book, Michael and Me, Our Gambling Addiction, My Cry for Help.

29:15He claimed that Michael owed him$1.25 million from golfing bets. And, you know, he had to testify in federal court that he'd written a$53 ,000 check to a golf hustler called Slim Bowler to cover his own gambling losses. So at this point, for all these reasons, he decides he needs a change of focus. So he takes a break from basketball, doing something that no one expected. He then decides, well, basketball, I've done that. Now I'll take on baseball. I honestly, I mean, I think someone described this at the time as like Superman auditioning to play Wolverine. It's kind of bizarre. So he starts playing minor league baseball with the Chicago White Sox, which, by the way, was owned by the same guy that owned the Chicago Bulls.

29:59So there was a connection there. Right. So kind of coming off like a bit of a jolly diversion. Yeah. But anyway, that didn't go particularly well. It was a short-lived fiasco of an experiment. And in March 1995, he announced he was rejoining the Bulls with just a two-word fax, I'm back. And a nation rejoiced. And what is astonishing is when he comes back after his return from his first retirement, he wins three in a row again. Unbelievable. It's a bit like when Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman. No one could believe he came back and do it all again. It kind of reminds me, actually, of one of those Greek myths, you know, where you have Zeus descending from heaven to be among the mortals.

30:41Then he leaves and he comes back again a few years later and everyone can't believe their eyes. It's got kind of superhero vibes about it, hasn't it? In the sense that, you know, the Hulk has gone off and sort of let himself go or Thor has gone off and is drinking in a bar and then have to come back and save the universe. Well, Tony Stark's decided he's not interested in engineering anymore and they basically have to be coaxed back into the game. And my goodness me, they do it all again. And he signs a series of record-breaking one-year deals with the Bulls, which includes a 1997 deal for$33.1 million.

31:15And that is more than the rest of the team get paid combined and represented at that time the highest single-season salary in the league's history. And that deal in 1997 wasn't beaten for another 20 years when another superstar, LeBron James, eclipsed it. so he's making a lot of money but in 1999 he decides to retire for the second time but maybe in collective mourning basketball audiences leave the show you know finals viewership drops by 45 percent that is incredible to think that one player can have that much effect on whether people are watching a game or not it just goes to show that he is a one-man industry he's a one-man phenomenon and you know although we've talked a lot about michael jordan's professional life and obviously the things he did to make money.

32:02He does have a life beyond sport. Yeah, he married his first wife, Juanita Vannoy, in Las Vegas in 1989. They had three kids together. They divorced in 2002. Then they reconciled, then they divorced again in 2006. And reportedly Juanita got$168 million in the divorce settlement. That is the largest celebrity divorce settlement on public record at that time. But, you know, family life doesn't actually play a big part of his story. It's just all about basketball. And he continues that trend into his retirement. So he becomes a team owner, not just a team player. In the 2000s, he moves off the court and into management and ownership.

32:44Yeah. And this is a really important point. And I think it touches on what we've said so far in this series is that to make the really big bucks, you need to own the company. And obviously, he's got more endorsements, probably some of the most successful endorsement deals of all time. But to make even bigger bucks, you need to actually own the company. And it's very interesting. There is this sometimes in sport, there's a spat between the owners and the players about who gets the biggest share of the money that the sport generates. And often this is called millionaires versus billionaires. So kind of plays into our theme here in the sense that the players are millionaires, but the owners are billionaires.

33:24And this is where he's headed now. First of all, he buys a stake in the Washington Wizards and actually also plays there. And that was his last professional game he ever played was for them. But he gets fired as team president after three unsuccessful years. And in 2006, he purchases a minority stake in a team called the Charlotte Bobcats, which are now called the Charlotte Hornets, who are a big and successful franchise. So at the time, its chairman and CEO said, I not only respect Michael for his basketball knowledge and expertise, but also for his business skills, particularly in branding and marketing.

34:00And he continues to build his stake in the Hornets. In 2010, he then buys a majority share of the Hornets for$175 million, financed with$25 million in equity, that's his own money, and borrows$150 million of the rest, so$150 million of debt. And that deal includes the operating rights to the team's arena, the Spectrum Centre. In a way, this reminds me a little bit of what Oprah Winfrey did. She set up her own studio. She secured the rights to her own shows. It's that ownership of the property which generates the really big money. And, you know, it's funny because Michael Jordan was never that shy about criticising the management of the Chicago Bulls when he didn't agree with decisions that they made.

34:39So for him to kind of turn around and go, actually, I'm going to become one of you guys. And the hypocrisy, if you like, goes even further because there becomes a spat between the owners and the players. and having been on the player side and criticising the owners. Now he's an owner, he actually tries to cap the amount of money that the players get. So he's played both sides of this divide. Understandably, at the time, he was described as a hypocrite sellout who can easily betray the very people who made him a global icon. I mean, people don't mince words. So anyway, in 2014, he actually increases his stake in the Hornets to nearly 90%.

35:16So he pretty much owns the entire team. So you add that to his earnings, which is still rolling in from Nike, he is now, according to Forbes, a billionaire. So we know he's a gambler. We know that originally, the original stake, he put$25 million of his own money and borrowed$150 million to get that$175 million majority stake. This is a business gamble. He's a gambler, but he's also a winner, and he's got this towering will to win, which we've talked about on the court. And I think that most of the very rich people that I've ever come across or had any interaction with are people who have made big bets, which have come good.

35:52You know, it seems to me to be a common trait of billionaires that they back themselves taking big, risky moves, which pay off. There are probably just as many people we could be talking about who took those bets and they didn't come off. These are the people who've won when they've rolled the dice. I guess this is a thing because it really easily applies to sport as well. there were people who were taller than Michael Jordan. There were probably people who were initially more talented and more physically gifted. But because he had that combination of the will to win at any cost, he put in a lot of hard work.

36:26So his coach in university talks about how every single game he saw Michael in, he was learning something new, he was putting it into practice. And he also takes big risks with a lot of potential to lose. all those three kind of combine into making someone a great sports person the thing is one of the reasons michael jordan became such a big star is that the way that basketball is structured when it boils down to the final seconds there will be one player who usually takes the match winning shot and with jordan it was always him he was the one with five seconds to go they would give the ball to him and he would be the one to take the potentially match winning shot so you were betting on him he was betting on himself and he got the glory to some extent his business activities reflect the role that he played on court although how much of it was just him being advised by good people like his mother his agent you know he got lucky with you know the family he was born into the people who signed him yeah no listen um him mum insisting on the five percent of all nike sales that was a master stroke would he have done that himself we don't know but having said that he's a pretty hard-nosed business person himself various people throughout his career said they were impressed not just obviously by his playing which was amazing but also by his acumen his sense of how to do branding and marketing but like anyone like all the people we've seen there have been some key people around them who have helped them you know become mega rich

38:00these stories can't be told in a few minutes they need depth who can you trust what can you believe what are you hearing is it right like how do you get to the bottom of something listen to world of secrets exposing things that powerful people want to keep hidden be the voice of the voiceless i think that investigative reporting is more important than it ever has been when you have a breakthrough you think is this the moment when everything changes delve into a world of secrets global bbc investigations and gripping storytelling world of secrets listen on bbc sounds

38:37Hey, Ryan, that was a fast trip. It was like you teleported. Yeah, just got in. I'll get all my expenses logged, I promise. Oh, no, you're okay. SAP Concur uses advanced AI, so your expense report will practically write itself. Quite the breakthrough. It's like we've been teleported into the future. All right. So, just curious, would you give us written permission to convert your matter into energy patterns and reassemble you at, say, random travel destinations? Margaret, are you building a teleporter? No. Yes. SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn more at concur.com.

39:32SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn more at concur.com. AI is now a must for companies and the executives in charge of steering them. But the path to implementation is not so clear. Which function or scenario or the use case do I start with that gives me the most value? I'm Chip Kranixl, host of Resilient Edge, a business vitality podcast paid and presented by Deloitte. Our latest episode has the answers to all these questions and more. Available now wherever you listen to podcasts.

40:15Bringing it up to date, he's a billionaire. In 2013, he marries longtime girlfriend, Cuban-American model Yvette Prieto. They have identical twin daughters. And in 2019, he becomes a grandfather. Oh, my God. He's 60 years old now. He may be 60 years old. It may be 20 years since he pulled on a basketball jersey. But his earnings from Nike last year were$256 million. It's almost like the Michael Jordan brand has surpassed Michael Jordan the individual. I reckon there are some Gen Zers out there who don't know that Air Jordan is inspired by Michael Jordan. I think that's probably right. That's when you know you've become more than a man.

40:55You've become a brand. That's incredible. That's probably right. And also, you know, in summer just of this year, he sold his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets to a couple of business people, ending his 13-year tenure as majority owner. He's kept a small minority stake. The purchase price of the Hornets was$3 billion. And just remember, Michael paid$175 million for a majority stake back in 2010. So that was a very, very lucrative deal. I don't think he's actually said how much money he's making from this deal yet, has he? No, we don't know exactly how much he's made from it. But Forbes put his overall wealth now at over$2 billion.

41:32So now we get to the part where we judge our billionaires. Are they good? Are they bad? Are they just wealthy? Or in Michael Jordan's case, just another MVP, greatest player of all time, the GOAT? he's not going to be remembered for his wealth but we have to judge it anyway so on they reckon it's around two billion dollars it's not top of the tree but one of the richest athletes i think maybe the richest athlete in sporting history right with inflation adjusted i actually think he's considered the highest paid athlete of all time which is pretty incredible he really tore the roof of what an athlete can earn in their lifetime yeah i can only think of people like Lionel Messi, Tiger Woods, maybe, are the only people who could even rival this.

42:16And he likes to spend it as well. You know, we've talked about his gambling, built his own golf course. Yeah. And he got an$80 million yacht, as you do. He's got a bunch of luxury cars. He's got a $2.2 million Bugatti Veyron, fastest road car in the world. And as celebrities love to do this, they just love to own tequila brands. He also has his own tequila brand called Sincoro. He launched a Sincoro Gold Edition in 2022. A bottle of that sells for$349. So it's not just how much they have, it's how they wear it and how they spend it and how flash they are. I think he's, you know, given the fact he's got a private golf course with drones to bring you beer, which is a lovely touch.

42:57I'm a big fan of that idea. So I'm going to give him on wealth and how he wears it i'll give him give him a five i think i'll give him a six out of ten because like the drones the golf course the tequila brand i mean he clearly likes to spend money the yacht yeah okay fine five for me six for you so rags to riches how far have they come uh father was a mechanic mum was a bank teller they were born in brooklyn moved north carolina when he was five, didn't have a lot of money. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's an Oprah story, you know, where she literally grew up wearing rags. Sounds like he had parents who encouraged him and supported him.

43:42Yeah, he doesn't come from a rich family and getting there is hard because there aren't that many teams. The barriers to entry are literally high. Physically and metaphorically. You have to be pretty tall and only a fraction of the people who play basketball will ever make it to the top league. So it's difficult to get there. Oh, it's a hard one. I would say maybe I'm going to hedge my bets a little bit and just fall out of 10 it. I'm going to go the other way. I'm going to say to get from not making your varsity team when you're 15 and going home and crying to becoming the greatest of all time, I'm looking at the sporting journey.

44:20He went right to the very top. So I'm going to give him an eight. Now let's talk about villainy. Now this is interesting because, you know, there's a long running thing on the internet of asking is Michael Jordan a psychopath if you actually type that into Google you get so many people on Reddit seriously asking the question with people debating it you know did the behavior he exhibited on and off court count as a kind of sociopathic behavior it's something that a lot of billionaires are also accused of yeah he was a bully there's no doubt about that there was a guy called Kwame Brown who Michael Jordan regularly reduced to tears in front of the team.

44:55He called them expletives, including reportedly homophobic remarks. He wound up his opponents. You know, he could be a real mean bastard, to be honest. And he also punched one of his teammates in the face, right? Steve Kerr, yeah. Steve Kerr was one of his Chicago Bulls teammates, famously took a winning shot when they won the NBA one year. But Steve Kerr kind of got over it. He sort of laughed it Steve Kerr has an interesting take on this. He calls it one of the best things that ever happened for me. Quote, I needed to stand up and go back at him. I think I earned some respect, but we have a great relationship ever since.

45:32Which is kind of, I don't know, you know, it's like when a bully says, I don't pick on people. If people can handle it, like I respect them more after. It's what bullies always say. Yeah, yeah. You have to bring in here that he was a very sore loser. When he lost a game of golf, he went back and banged on the door until he got a rematch. He couldn't bear losing. In a game of cards that was for no money, when someone went up to the loo, someone caught him trying to cheat. In the last dance, there's that footage of him playing, what was he playing again? The dice against the wall or something? He was taking money off the guy who works as a maintenance bloke in the stadium.

46:06I mean, that is pretty, I think that is borderline behaviour. And not only that, even in one of his greatest moments when he was being inducted to the Hall of Fame, he blasted just about everyone and everything in his life, including the Hall of Fame itself. He's an angry, bullying, sore loser. Which is so funny, right? Because I think at the start of his career, when he was, you know, still a rookie, trying to earn his stripes, when he was at university, learning, you know, the game, he comes off as quite humble I mean he had a lot of hype but he more than lived up to it in terms of you know his professional success maybe somewhere along the route he just bought his own hype and you know drove him a bit mad yeah I'm going to give him a 7 on villainy this is not some sweet cuddly guy here who as you said you know the sweet cuddly man from the Space Jam movie this is quite a different person no and actually while we were doing the research for this episode I was kind of shocked at how much my impression of Michael Jordan from growing up with Space Jam, from, you know, people I know wearing Chicago Bulls jerseys and praising him, how much that Michael Jordan was so different to the real Michael Jordan.

47:19I mean, again, it's all branding, isn't it? What are you going to give him? I'm going to give him a seven as well. Okay, two sevens on villainy. So philanthropy, how generous have they been with their mega wealth? In 2016, he gave five million to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American history and culture to open a sports gallery. He also donated$7.2 million in 2019 to build health clinics in North Carolina. Yeah, him and his Nike brand pledged to donate$100 million over 10 years to organisations fighting for racial equality, social justice and greater access to education. That's a pretty big donation.

47:54Yeah, it is pretty big. And you know, it keeps going up until present day when, you know, COVID stopped games. Him and other NBA owners pledged to pay arena workers for the missed matches. He's donated to relief efforts in the Carolinas. He even donated his$2 million earnings from The Last Dance, which, by the way, presents a very complicated portrait of the man, to put it lightly. Yeah, that's right. And he donated the earnings to Feeding America's food banks in Chicago and the Carolinas. I mean, he scores pretty well on this. I think he does. I think he does. And I think that, you know, It's clear where his priorities are.

48:31These are big numbers. I would say as a percentage of his wealth scores very well against our other billionaires. I'd give him an eight on this. I'd actually give him an eight as well. Because if you look at the list of things that he donates to, he's clearly very invested in the African-American community, very invested in where he grew up, North Carolina. So he has a personal investment in these places. I think that speaks well of him. There's an authenticity to the stuff that he's done charitably, which mirrors his own life experiences. He's not cherry picking things from all over the world.

49:00No, I think that's right. So two eights on that. Power. At the height of his fame, single handedly, he transformed the fortunes of the Chicago Bulls. He was a huge influence on television viewing figures. When he was playing, it was huge. When he didn't play, it dropped off massively. He became the most famous sporting icon on the planet, an inspiration to millions. I'd say power at his height was a nine. If you were the US president and someone picked up a phone and said, it's Michael Jordan online too, you'd pick up. I'd give him a 10. Oh, you're going to give him a 10? I'm going to give him a 10 because he was criticised for not getting involved in, you know, political endorsements.

49:46You know, Obama was famously kind of disappointed in him for not doing more with his kind of fame to kind of uplift the black community politically. He always said, you know, I'm an athlete. I'm not a politician. But in terms of raw power and his ability to draw people in and to change the fortunes of entire industries to actually kind of enlarge an idea of what an athlete could earn. I mean, I'd give him a 10. Yeah. I mean, also when he was the most famous person on the Dream Team in the US for the US team, that was a quasi political thing. Actually, the dominance that the US showed in basketball with him at the helm.

50:23That was actually quite a political thing as well in some ways. So, yeah, I'm going to give him a nine. You're going to give him the full 10. I feel I should sort of make some sort of cooing noise because it's a perfect 10. Legacy, how will they be remembered? It seems to me perfectly likely that Nike will still be selling Air Jordans in 100 years. I think so. And I think there are probably Gen Zers out there who have seen that silhouette of Michael Jordan flying through the air on Nike merchandise and have no idea it's Michael Jordan. I mean, he raised sort of sporting fame to new heights. I think in the sporting world, there's probably only been Pele, Maradona, Messi, Tiger Woods, and possibly, and you'd have to go even way back in American culture to get anywhere.

51:11Like you'd have to be a Babe Ruth or something. Muhammad Ali. Or Muhammad Ali. Yeah, he's in that category. So a legacy, I think 10 for me. I'd give him a now I feel bad giving him a 9 but I'm going to give him a 9 because I mean there's an argument where you say if younger people don't realise that Air Jordans are inspired by Michael Jordan he can't score that highly on Legacy because it's not about the man anymore he's become something else he's become the Apple logo but so for that reason I think I'd give him a 9 I like your idea that he's like the Apple logo now the Apple logo is one of the most instantly recognisable symbols in the entire world.

51:50Having given birth to a symbol with that kind of power, I think legacy is pretty high. So I'd give it a 10. Finally, is Michael Jordan good, bad or just another billionaire? Well, he's good in the sense he's the greatest player ever to have played his game or potentially any game. You know, he's potentially better at his sport than anyone else. And he's more better than anyone else who's ever played any sport, if you like. Do you see what I mean? So he's good in that sense but he's a you know he's a tough cookie and he's a pretty unpleasant person in personally i don't know when that kicked in but he was a bully a bad teammate a bad loser sometimes quite vindictive person but on the other hand he's done so much to inspire sporting success and i think he's been an incredibly inspirational role model for an entire generation of young people.

52:41I'm going to say it's 50-50. It's right on the dividing line between good and bad. He's 50 % good, 50 % bad. So he's just another billionaire. But that doesn't mean he's not an incredibly colourful, nuanced and fascinating character. I'm going to agree with you. I think the bad, you know, when he was bad, oh my God, you would not want to be on a team with him. Let's put it that way. I mean, you wouldn't even want to be coaching him because he was pretty horrible to, you know, people who were technically above him in the pecking order of the Chicago Bulls. But at the same time, on the good side, he expanded people's idea of what sport can do.

53:19You know, you talk about sport inspiring people, but you watch that footage of him scoring, flying through the air, that idea of people being bigger than what a human can do, you know, that idea of human capacity being enlarged to a point where you think wow this guy's magnificent that's an unparalleled good for me you expand the idea of what humanity can do that is what sport is all about yeah so i think it balances out so yeah i'm tempted to say the two cancel each other out he's just another billionaire but he is probably one of the most interesting figures in sport and probably one of the more interesting billionaires out there yeah for sure okay so we both agree on that so who have we got next week so next week we've got The Bruce Wayne of Stoke-on-Trent, the reclusive billionaire who is behind Bet365.

54:12What Bet365? Bet responsibly. Denise Coates, that Denise Coates. I can confidently predict she'll be the only billionaire from Stoke-on-Trent that we'll be covering in this series. Thanks for listening to Good Bad Billionaire. This podcast is produced by Hannah Hufford and Mark Ward. James Cook is our editor and it's a BBC audio production. So if you enjoyed listening, then please tell a friend.

54:40The Spirits of Buttonhouse are back to haunt your screens. And now, your ears as a podcast. As once more, we go Inside Ghosts. You're insane. Tish-tosh. The fifth and final series is here, and we'll be following our favourite phantoms and the spooky stories that unfold episode by episode. I met the elephant man. What was he like? Rather boring, couldn't see the fuss. I'm Nathan Bryan and join me for ghostly gossip with the stars from the show. What the bally heck is going on? And take an exclusive peekaboo behind the scenes. Beat that. Inside Ghosts. Listen on BBC Sounds.