Magic Johnson has had a lot of success during his career, but he hasn’t always had a good nose when it comes to business. The ex-Laker notably missed a golden deal in the late 70s. Result, he sat on more than five billion dollars….
The best prospects generally do not wait long before being offered offers by the biggest equipment manufacturers, who wish to make them their new muses by surfing on their hype. We can cite Zion Williamson as a recent example, for whom the shoe brands literally fought before he chose Jordan Brand and Nike. However, Magic Johnson had chosen a different path when he arrived in the NBA.
Drafted in 1979, the legend of the Lakers had thus signed a deal with Converse, guaranteeing him a sum of 100,000 dollars. A nice amount, at the time… except that he seriously regretted it afterwards, in particular because Nike had offered him a golden bridge in the long term. As he recently explained, the contract he would have signed with the latter could have made him the highest paid athlete of all time!
When Magic refused Nike for Converse as an equipment supplier
Looks like the story of Phil Knight pitching the Nike shoe deal to Magic Johnson on #WinningTime is true. Here’s Magic talking about it. pic.twitter.com/hDMwfJHxVi
— Neon Boudeaux (@Carnage45__) April 11, 2022
At 19, I had never heard of stocks. I had to take the money; I had to take the cash. I assure you, I would have been a multi-billionaire by now. If you think back to 1979, getting those stocks back then, what are they worth today? Damn it. It kills me every time I think about it. Michael Jordan would have made me so much money.
A bit of background: Nike offered Johnson $1 for every pair of shoes he sold and 100,000 shares in stock options, the stock being valued at $0.18 at the time. Considering the company’s stock value today is worth $134 million, the Hall of Famer sat on about 5.2 billion greenbacks! An absolutely insane sum compared to the amount he received with Converse.
We can therefore understand the big regrets of the person concerned, because as he recalls, a certain Michael Jordan went after him to the comma brand. Developing Jordan Brand with it, His Airness became the first billionaire sportsman in history thanks to his shoes which are sold in droves around the world. Suffice to say that the n°23 had a much finer nose than his partner with Team USA!
Earning 100,000 dollars is in itself a nice financial operation, but it is much less so when you could have touched more than 5 billion. Luckily for Magic Johnson, that didn’t stop him from earning a good living afterwards!
