mobile app bar

“Did Michael Jordan really lose $500 million because of GameStop?”: Bulls legend’s massive net worth drop last year might not actually be linked to Gabe Plotkin’s ownership

Arun Sharma
Published

“Having $1 billion just means people can call and ask me for money”: Michael Jordan dispassionately broke down what it meant to be a billionaire

Michael Jordan remains a billionaire in 2022 – with his net worth in the ballpark of $1.6 billion. 

The first billionaire NBA athlete ever, Michael Jordan will never complain about running out of money in many lifetimes. Unless his kids decide to gamble away like Charles Barkley, they would probably end up losing the “B” in their net worth.

With that kind of bankrolling in on the daily, one particular hit MJ took was the infamous GameStop hit. To give a brief idea of what happened, a subreddit took down a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, just because they were irked about stock shorting. That may be an oversimplification, but that is exactly what happened.

How Jordan was embroiled in this situation was because Melvin Capital, the hedge fund that was targeted was owned by Gabe Plotkin. Gabe also owned a minority stake in the Charlotte Hornets, which brought the valuation down when the valuation of MC came crashing.

Also Read: “I never thought I was playing just Michael Jordan, I was playing the Chicago Bulls”: When Karl Malone spoke about preparing for the finals in 1998

Michael Jordan does not have time to bother about a few 100 million – he’s got many hundreds more!

At the same time as this controversy, Forbes released its updated list that dropped MJ’s valuation from 2.1 b to 1.6 b. A $500 million was wiped out, with no explanation given. Since this was something tangible that people could see, everyone believed the GameStop controversy was what brought it on.

View on Website

But to be completely honest, that cannot be the case. There is no credible evidence, reputed journals, or any reply from Forbes themselves about why the valuation dropped. The more plausible answer would be the overvaluation of the franchise, with a market correction that was made.

With the pandemic running rampage on everyone’s finances, a sports franchise would probably take the biggest hit. A small market team was only evaluated so highly because it had the name Michael Jordan attached to it. Once revenues started plummeting, ticket sales were not the same, the value was adjusted to the real-time. This is one reason why the value dropped so much.

Not saying the share stock price falling did not affect him – it did. It, however, did not make him lose half a billion dollars in a single week.

Also Read: “Kobe Bryant’s mindset had Michael Jordan’s mentality at 15!”: Tim Legler reveals an incredible story from his life about the younger days of Lakers legend

About the author

Arun Sharma

Arun Sharma

instagram-iconlinkedin-icon

Arun Sharma is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. A double degree holder and a digital marketer by trade, Arun has always been a sports buff. He fell in love with the sport of basketball at a young age and has been a Lakers fan since 2006. What started as a Kobe Bryant obsession slowly turned into a lifelong connection with the purple and gold. Arun has been an ardent subscriber to the Mamba mentality and has shed tears for a celebrity death only once in his life. He believes January 26, 2020, was the turning point in the passage of time because Kobe was the glue holding things together. From just a Lakers bandwagoner to a basketball fanatic, Arun has spent 16 long years growing up along with the league. He thinks Stephen Curry has ruined basketball forever, and the mid-range game is a sight to behold. Sharma also has many opinions about football (not the American kind), F1, MotoGP, tennis, and cricket.

Read more from Arun Sharma

Share this article