Michael Jordan is considered by most to be the greatest basketball player of all-time but he may be a better businessman than he ever was a basketball player. Jordan is the controlling owner of the Charlotte Hornets and has his own apparel empire in Nike's Jordan Brand which has reportedly made him more money this year than he made in his entire NBA playing career, according to Dan Devine of Yahoo Sports.
There are a couple of things to take into account after reading that last statement and one of them is that this report doesn't account for inflation. Another thing to take into account is that it is unknown exactly how much money Jordan made in his NBA career. One source has him at $90.2 million in career earnings while another has him at $94 million. Either way Jordan made about $100 million from selling sneakers this year which is more than any projection of the NBA money he made.
Jordan made $3.25 million in the 1991-92 season which today is worth $5.69 million so if you did that with every years salary it would probably add up to more than $100 million. In 1997-98 Jordan made a record setting $33.1 million with the Chicago Bulls and an inflation calculator cannot even figure out how much that would be in 2015 dollars.
Even without inflation though this is some impressive stuff from Michael Jordan as his Jordan Brand is the best on the market and there is really nothing coming close to it at the moment. Jordan reportedly sold eight times the amount of sneakers as the top active NBA star, LeBron James, this year, according to Kurt Badenhousen of Forbes.
In addition to the money Jordan is making off of his sneakers he has also made the Charlotte organization more lucrative. Jordan bought his stake in the team for $175 million back in 2010 and earlier this year the franchise was valued at $725 million which is huge growth in just five short years.
Jordan was a heck of a basketball player and maybe the best anybody has ever seen but his business acumen may have his basketball skills beat and that is seriously saying something.
