Michael Jordan, considered by many as the G.O.A.T. becomes a Billionaire (yes we said Billion with a B). Now CNBC and others are reporting MJ is the first billionaire athlete, while Golf Magazine gave the honor to Tiger Woods in February. All we know is whether he is truly the first athlete or not, it’s an incredible accomplishment that needs to be uplifted.
CNBC reports Tiger Woods is supposedly on track to reach $1 billion next year, though his agent Mark Steinberg told CNBC he doesn’t keep an official tally anywhere. Mention by many, LeBron James is the dude who is thought to be most likely to follow Woods. But even six and a half year after MJ played his last game, five years after being inducted in the Hall Of Fame, he still setting the bar.
According to Mike Ozanian of Forbes, Jordan recently increased his ownership stake in the Charlotte Hornets from 80 percent to 89.5 percent, which put MJ over the billionaire threshold. Given the 2014 sale prices of the Milwaukee Bucks ($550 million) and Los Angeles Clippers ($2 billion), Forbes now estimates Jordan’s Hornets are worth between $600 million and $625 million.
Mike Ozanian writes: Our net worth figure for Jordan uses the $600 million figure. The Hornets have $135 million of debt, which makes Jordan’s equity in the team worth $416 million. After subtracting all the cash Jordan has invested in the team, we estimate his net worth outside of the Hornets to be $600 million, giving him a net worth of a $1 billion.
In addition to that, his Nike brand, Jordan, topped $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time, according to CNBC. It appropriately comes 23 years after Nike reached $1 billion in revenue for the first time. At more than $1 billion in sales, the Jordan brand now makes up roughly 5 percent of Nike’s overall revenues.
This come just after Dr. Dre, the rapper/producer-cum-mogul recently became hip-hop’s first billionaire, when Apple paid $3 billion to acquire Beats Electronics, the headphone manufacturer and music streaming service in which Dre and partner Jimmy Iovine had around a 50-percent stake.
In an era where everyone post and repost whatever there hear and see without checking the facts, in the matter of whose first, I figured I’d check Forbes for myself and this is what they had to say in an article online on the matter: So is MJ the first billionaire athlete? Sort of. In September 2009, Forbes bestowed that title upon Tiger Woods. Two month later, Tiger crashed his Escalade and began his fall from grace. He’s not currently listed on Forbes comprehensive list of the world’s billionaires.
First or not, one thing is clear, from this point forth, you must now refer to Michael Jordan as Air Billionaire!
