Wonder-trail of MJ DKYs Part III of IV

He could have owned TWO dynasties!

Continued from Part II...

Then if you Google "jonathan kovler bulls", you'll find courtesy of the NY Times that George Steinbrenner (of all people) once owned 10% of the Bulls, but his share was bought out by Jerry Reinsdorf in '85, prior to the Bulls' championship runs. Based on 2003 estimates in Rovell's article, Reinsdorf parlayed his $9.2 million investment twenty-fold into $184 million! When Steinbrenner sold, the Bulls were only worth a little over $16 million. Ten percent of that is only $1.6 million, so my guess is, Georgie's original investment was probably around $500,000 (maybe less). Had he held onto his share, theoretically he could have turned $500k into about $33 million!

Btw, according to 60 Minutes, MJ was worth $4 million (annually?), mostly in endorsements. He was worth a quarter of the Bulls value! Assuming that's a per-year basis, not even LeBron comes close to that (Nike: $90 mil over 7 years, Cavs: $80 mil over 5 years).

More to follow in Part IV someday in the near future.

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Wonder-trail of MJ DKYs Part II of III

As you'll recall from Part I, our brief TrueHoop-YouTube-Google excursion of Michael Jordan Did You Know's began with the 1986 60 Minutes interview where we read the fine print and saw that MJ's "love of the game" clause was addressed to one "Jonathan". If it was addressed to "Jerry", as in Reinsdorf or Krause, we would not have pressed forward.

A Google search on "jonathan bulls owner" reveals an ESPN article from 2003 called "Cashing in on the ultimate cash cow" by Darren Rovell describing how MJ impacted the wealth of other people, with Reinsdorf at the top of the list. Curiously absent from the list: William Wesley, the most important NBA insider no one's heard of, as unearthed by TrueHoop's Henry Abbott.

More in Part III to follow.

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