The Wall Street Journal
In His Ownership Role With the Charlotte Bobcats, the Basketball Icon Switches Into His Sales Mode; Chatting in the Pub
He meets the locals at Charlotte's Selwyn Avenue Pub, a bar with $3 beers. He hobnobs with prospective ticket buyers at the arena. Earlier this year, he surprised a room full of fresh-out-of-college sales employees with a box of donuts.
You may know Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball icon of all time. Now meet his alter ego, MJ the friendly basketball proprietor.
To buy 80% of the NBA's struggling Charlotte Bobcats in February, Mr. Jordan had to do something he wasn't accustomed to doing in his many years of endorsing products: put some of his own money on the line. To complete the purchase, two people familiar with the matter said he assumed interest payments on about $185 million in debt and had to raise about $55 million to cover payments to the team's other owners. Given the team's current liabilities, two people familiar with the team's finances said Mr. Jordan will have to personally cover at least $20 million in losses this year.
The experience seems to have brought the fiercely private Mr. Jordan out of his shell. On Friday at a "town hall" meeting with season-ticket holders, he took questions from Facebook and Twitter and, at one point, from a little girl who wanted to know how he planned to make the team more kid-friendly. The next night, at a charity black-tie event, he posed for photos, talked about sneakers and chit-chatted about how little golf he's playing.
"Dollars are hard to come by in this economy, and he's really realizing now that it's his own money on the table," says Felix Sabates, a Bobcats minority owner. "You couldn't syndicate ownership of a sports team right now if your life depended on it. He's out there hustling." Mr. Jordan declined to be interviewed for this article.
While he was a dominant force on the court during his 15-year NBA career, Mr. Jordan's net worth, compared with other owners in the league, puts him securely in the second string. The majority of his income—which analysts peg at about $50 million a year—comes from his role as a product endorser for brands like Nike, Hanes, Gatorade and videogame maker 2K Sports. While it's not clear how much Mr. Jordan has socked away over the years, about a dozen of his fellow NBA owners, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Russian metals magnate Mikhail Prokhorov, are billionaires.
During his playing days, Mr. Jordan was famous for his aloofness. When author David Halberstam wrote a 1999 book about Mr. Jordan called "Playing for Keeps," he acknowledged that Mr. Jordan never gave him an interview. In a stint as an executive with the Washington Wizards, Mr. Jordan never lived in Washington and rarely gave interviews or appeared at games. After he obtained a 10% share of the Bobcats in 2006 and agreed to run the basketball operation, Mr. Sabates said Mr. Jordan was the only minority owner—there were more than a dozen—who rarely showed up for quarterly meetings and routinely hung up early on conference calls.
But since February, Mr. Jordan has shown his face more often. At Selwyn Avenue Pub, where bartenders say he comes every couple of weeks, he hangs out in a secluded area where he dines on the $8 meat lover's pizza and occasionally chats with other patrons and poses for pictures.
One bartender, Derek Klomstad, said Mr. Jordan is generally nice—but when he offered Mr. Jordan a high-five after a Bobcats win last season, Mr. Jordan didn't acknowledge his hand. "He's doing what he has to do as owner," said John Crigler, a pub regular who has seen Mr. Jordan there. "You can tell he doesn't love it, but he's trying."
At the black-tie fund-raiser at the team's arena Saturday night, Mr. Jordan answered questions about his golf game (he didn't play that morning because "I just couldn't get out of bed," he said) and made a point to lightly touch nearly everyone he talked to, including a bald waiter whose head Mr. Jordan playfully palmed. After 10 minutes of hobnobbing after dinner, he made a bee-line to the exit. Julia Phillips, a season-ticket holder who said she talked with him at the town-hall event, said she can tell Mr. Jordan's act is a bit forced but that fans appreciate the effort.
To motivate the team's sales associates, Mr. Jordan sets incentives ranging from trips to Las Vegas to monthly lunches with the boss. Chris Brown, 26, met with Mr. Jordan at one such lunch where they ate turkey sandwiches and chips. Mr. Brown said Mr. Jordan told everyone to take off their suit jackets so they'd feel more comfortable, then had them go around the room talking about their goals and responsibilities. "At first I was shaking," Mr. Brown said. "But he was trying to be nice. You could tell he was trying to make us not be nervous."
Mr. Brown says he doesn't lead with Mr. Jordan's name during sales calls but that nearly every conversation winds around to His Airness. Bobcats President Fred Whitfield says the team doesn't promise prospective sponsors meetings with Mr. Jordan but that the majority of the team's 15 new partners did shake his hand before signing their deals. "It's assumed," Mr. Whitfield said.
So far, so good.
In Mr. Jordan's first season as majority owner, the Bobcats made the playoffs for the first time. The team said it has sold 2,200 new season-ticket packages and has a 93% renewal rate—placing them among the NBA's top five teams.
But it's unclear whether Mr. Jordan himself could return to his previous status, as surveys show his popularity among the public has slowly fallen in recent years. "Even though he's still a global icon, nobody is offering him those easy $5 million endorsement deals anymore," says Ryan Schinman, founder and chief executive of global talent agency Platinum Rye Entertainment.
To show his commitment to the area, Mr. Jordan recently bought an entire floor in the Trust building, a seven-story unit a few blocks from Time Warner Cable Arena. "He's at a time in his life when being an owner is a perfect marriage of his skills," said Estee Portnoy, a spokeswoman for Mr. Jordan. "He's not in this to make money."
Mr. Jordan has shown a few signs of his old ability to make things happen at the buzzer. Earlier this year, as the team's three-year-old partnership with Wachovia was set to expire, Mr. Whitfield said he was struggling to get the bank's Charlotte regional president, Kendall Alley, to commit to renewing the pact. Mr. Alley said Mr. Whitfield approached him in his suite during a game and asked: "Do you have a few minutes to meet with Michael?"
"It's hard to say no to Michael," Mr. Alley said. After the game, he said, Mr. Jordan went over details of where the team was headed and what he planned to do to make it profitable.
Saturday night at the charity event, Mr. Alley said Wachovia is planning to announce its renewal in the next couple of weeks.
He meets the locals at Charlotte's Selwyn Avenue Pub, a bar with $3 beers. He hobnobs with prospective ticket buyers at the arena. Earlier this year, he surprised a room full of fresh-out-of-college sales employees with a box of donuts.
You may know Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball icon of all time. Now meet his alter ego, MJ the friendly basketball proprietor.
To buy 80% of the NBA's struggling Charlotte Bobcats in February, Mr. Jordan had to do something he wasn't accustomed to doing in his many years of endorsing products: put some of his own money on the line. To complete the purchase, two people familiar with the matter said he assumed interest payments on about $185 million in debt and had to raise about $55 million to cover payments to the team's other owners. Given the team's current liabilities, two people familiar with the team's finances said Mr. Jordan will have to personally cover at least $20 million in losses this year.
The experience seems to have brought the fiercely private Mr. Jordan out of his shell. On Friday at a "town hall" meeting with season-ticket holders, he took questions from Facebook and Twitter and, at one point, from a little girl who wanted to know how he planned to make the team more kid-friendly. The next night, at a charity black-tie event, he posed for photos, talked about sneakers and chit-chatted about how little golf he's playing.
"Dollars are hard to come by in this economy, and he's really realizing now that it's his own money on the table," says Felix Sabates, a Bobcats minority owner. "You couldn't syndicate ownership of a sports team right now if your life depended on it. He's out there hustling." Mr. Jordan declined to be interviewed for this article.
While he was a dominant force on the court during his 15-year NBA career, Mr. Jordan's net worth, compared with other owners in the league, puts him securely in the second string. The majority of his income—which analysts peg at about $50 million a year—comes from his role as a product endorser for brands like Nike, Hanes, Gatorade and videogame maker 2K Sports. While it's not clear how much Mr. Jordan has socked away over the years, about a dozen of his fellow NBA owners, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Russian metals magnate Mikhail Prokhorov, are billionaires.
During his playing days, Mr. Jordan was famous for his aloofness. When author David Halberstam wrote a 1999 book about Mr. Jordan called "Playing for Keeps," he acknowledged that Mr. Jordan never gave him an interview. In a stint as an executive with the Washington Wizards, Mr. Jordan never lived in Washington and rarely gave interviews or appeared at games. After he obtained a 10% share of the Bobcats in 2006 and agreed to run the basketball operation, Mr. Sabates said Mr. Jordan was the only minority owner—there were more than a dozen—who rarely showed up for quarterly meetings and routinely hung up early on conference calls.
But since February, Mr. Jordan has shown his face more often. At Selwyn Avenue Pub, where bartenders say he comes every couple of weeks, he hangs out in a secluded area where he dines on the $8 meat lover's pizza and occasionally chats with other patrons and poses for pictures.
One bartender, Derek Klomstad, said Mr. Jordan is generally nice—but when he offered Mr. Jordan a high-five after a Bobcats win last season, Mr. Jordan didn't acknowledge his hand. "He's doing what he has to do as owner," said John Crigler, a pub regular who has seen Mr. Jordan there. "You can tell he doesn't love it, but he's trying."
At the black-tie fund-raiser at the team's arena Saturday night, Mr. Jordan answered questions about his golf game (he didn't play that morning because "I just couldn't get out of bed," he said) and made a point to lightly touch nearly everyone he talked to, including a bald waiter whose head Mr. Jordan playfully palmed. After 10 minutes of hobnobbing after dinner, he made a bee-line to the exit. Julia Phillips, a season-ticket holder who said she talked with him at the town-hall event, said she can tell Mr. Jordan's act is a bit forced but that fans appreciate the effort.
To motivate the team's sales associates, Mr. Jordan sets incentives ranging from trips to Las Vegas to monthly lunches with the boss. Chris Brown, 26, met with Mr. Jordan at one such lunch where they ate turkey sandwiches and chips. Mr. Brown said Mr. Jordan told everyone to take off their suit jackets so they'd feel more comfortable, then had them go around the room talking about their goals and responsibilities. "At first I was shaking," Mr. Brown said. "But he was trying to be nice. You could tell he was trying to make us not be nervous."
Mr. Brown says he doesn't lead with Mr. Jordan's name during sales calls but that nearly every conversation winds around to His Airness. Bobcats President Fred Whitfield says the team doesn't promise prospective sponsors meetings with Mr. Jordan but that the majority of the team's 15 new partners did shake his hand before signing their deals. "It's assumed," Mr. Whitfield said.
So far, so good.
In Mr. Jordan's first season as majority owner, the Bobcats made the playoffs for the first time. The team said it has sold 2,200 new season-ticket packages and has a 93% renewal rate—placing them among the NBA's top five teams.
But it's unclear whether Mr. Jordan himself could return to his previous status, as surveys show his popularity among the public has slowly fallen in recent years. "Even though he's still a global icon, nobody is offering him those easy $5 million endorsement deals anymore," says Ryan Schinman, founder and chief executive of global talent agency Platinum Rye Entertainment.
To show his commitment to the area, Mr. Jordan recently bought an entire floor in the Trust building, a seven-story unit a few blocks from Time Warner Cable Arena. "He's at a time in his life when being an owner is a perfect marriage of his skills," said Estee Portnoy, a spokeswoman for Mr. Jordan. "He's not in this to make money."
Mr. Jordan has shown a few signs of his old ability to make things happen at the buzzer. Earlier this year, as the team's three-year-old partnership with Wachovia was set to expire, Mr. Whitfield said he was struggling to get the bank's Charlotte regional president, Kendall Alley, to commit to renewing the pact. Mr. Alley said Mr. Whitfield approached him in his suite during a game and asked: "Do you have a few minutes to meet with Michael?"
"It's hard to say no to Michael," Mr. Alley said. After the game, he said, Mr. Jordan went over details of where the team was headed and what he planned to do to make it profitable.
Saturday night at the charity event, Mr. Alley said Wachovia is planning to announce its renewal in the next couple of weeks.
