Michael Jordan earned his first $2,500,000 million from Nike due to a combined effort from his parents, Deloris and James, and the ingenuity of his agent, David Falk. MJ is Falk’s most prestigious client across companies, regardless of whether he was in Proserv or at his own ‘FAME’. However, because of Jordan’s greatness, it’s easy to forget the litany of superstar talent he represented along the way, one of whom he intelligently advised to give up $114,000,000.
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Falk claimed to earn ‘merely’ $230,000 a single year during his earlier days as an agent but as time went on, he began to become a bit savvier with his deals. It was layer on reported that Falk took up to 20% of player endorsements due to him having negotiated them. Given that Jordan was said to have earned around $40 million per year on endorsements, he would rake in $8 million of his own.
Aside from him being an agent, he was also a close companion to his clients. He built great relationships with them and this led to them trusting him with hundreds of millions of their dollars.
Alonzo Mourning gave up $114,000,000 for a moment
Alonzo Mourning is one of the greatest players in Miami Heat history and so him being someone who snags a deal worth well over $100 million makes sense. This type of contract was exactly what he was getting when the Heat, in 1996, offered him $114 million over 13 years.
At the time, having a deal that guarantees you over $100 million was massive and so taking up the franchise on the offer was much more likely than not. David Falk on the other hand, seemed to have found a better option and negotiated an even better deal, which effectively meant giving up on $113 million for the time being.
“When I think about telling Alonzo Mourning in 1995 to turn down a 13-year, $114 million offer, it was about believing in me. Then, the next year, he got a 7-year, $105 million deal,” said Falk to CNBC.
David Falk came up with the name ‘Air Jordan’
David Falk is credited for being the man who forged and later strengthened the relationship between Michael Jordan and Nike. He wasn’t on board at first as depicted in the bio-pic ‘Air’ as MJ wanted to be with Adidas and also because Sonny Vaccaro went behind his back and talked to his parents without going through him.
As time went on and it was clear MJ wanted to be with Nike, Falk made his greatest contribution to the deal by coming up with the name ‘Air Jordan’. It made perfect sense given that Nike had the ‘Air Sole’ technology and ‘His Airness’ was known to duke it out in the air when on NBA hardwood. What makes it even more impressive is the fact that he reported came up with the name in about a minute’s time.
