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Michael Jordan
He turned a sneaker contract into a fortune no athlete had held, and spent none of it on politics.
The rise
Born in Brooklyn on 17 February 1963 and raised in Wilmington, North Carolina, he hit the winning shot in the 1982 NCAA final and joined the Chicago Bulls in 1984. That autumn Nike built a shoe line around an untested rookie; Air Jordan sold $126 million in its first year, against a forecast of $3 million.
What they did
Six titles with Chicago made him the most marketed athlete alive; the 1997 deal that made Air Jordan a Nike division left him a royalty on every pair, and the brand passed $7 billion in revenue in fiscal 2024. In 2010 he took control of the Bobcats, the first former player to own an NBA franchise, and sold the majority stake in 2023 on a $3 billion valuation, keeping a minority share.
The full picture
In 1990 he declined to back Harvey Gantt, a Black Democrat, against Jesse Helms at home; of the line that Republicans buy sneakers too, long reported second-hand, he said in 2020 it was thrown off the cuff. He acknowledged in court that a $57,000 cheque to a convicted dealer settled a golf debt; a 1993 NBA inquiry cleared him.
Why it matters
No Black athlete had ever owned so much of the business built on his own name. What he declined to do with that power is the other half of the lesson, and every athlete since has had to answer it.
“I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player.”