When Michael Jordan retired for the first time in October 1993, he was still under contract with the Chicago Bulls. MJ signed an 8-year, $25 million deal in 1988 which represented a pay rise from a 7-year, $6.3 million rookie deal. The deal ran until 1996, which meant that he needed to sign another extension to continue playing for the Bulls, after returning for retirement. Even considering the standards of the 90s, Jordan was grossly underpaid until 1996 and deserved a big pay rise. After all, he was only considered the best player of all time by most fans. According to Roland Lazenby’s Michael Jordan: The Life, MJ had a simple condition that he presented to Jerry Reinsdorf, the chairperson of the Chicago Bulls. He wanted a salary of over $30,000,000 and ended up threatening a meeting with the New York Knicks to bring home the demand.
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Reinsdorf eventually folded and offered MJ a $30,140,000 1-year deal that he ended up accepting. Jordan, who first signed with Nike back in 1984, had big payments coming in from the sneaker giants due to his Air Jordan deal. This meant that he never cared about the money he made from his contracts with the Bulls. However, when Reinsdorf showed reluctance to offer the kind of salary that he deserved, MJ ended up putting his foot down and cunningly got what he wanted.
Michael Jordan threatened a meeting with New York Knicks to get a $30,000,000 Bulls contract
Jerry Reinsdorf was infamous for wanting to underpay his players. This includes the likes of Dennis Rodman and Scottie Pippen, the latter having serious issues with the organization.
However, Jordan was a step above and wasn’t afraid to give out threats in order to get what he wanted. Before the 1996 season was to start, MJ had set up a meeting with the New York Knicks and his agent David Falk wanted to receive an offer from New York right after their meeting with Reinsdorf.
MJ was at a celebrity golf tournament at the time, and the Bulls chairman knew that he had some time to negotiate the contract. He eventually caved, and offered the $30,000,000 deal that MJ was looking for:
“Finally exasperated at Reinsdorf’s reluctance to make an offer, Jordan was pulled into a conference phone call with his agent and Reinsdorf. At the time, he was playing golf. But he told Reinsdorf that if the team wanted to re-sign him it would be a one-year deal for better than $30 million. And that Reinsdorf had one hour to agree. “At the time they were negotiating I was in Tahoe for a celebrity golf tournament,” Jordan explained. “And we had some conversations with New York. And we were gonna meet with them right after we met with Reinsdorf, and I think that was within an hour’s time. David wanted the Bulls to make their offer and discuss it before we go down and have a conversation with New York. But [Reinsdorf] knew he had a window in terms of the conversation with New York.””
Needless to say, while Reinsdorf could have his way with most players, MJ was not one of them. Jordan was not afraid to give out threats and could have walked to literally any franchise of his choice at the time.
Jerry Reinsdorf was not happy about offering the $30 million contract to Michael Jordan
Reinsdorf may have agreed to pay the amount, but he was hardly happy about it. MJ and the Bulls went on to win another 3-peat, and MJ retired for the 2nd time with 6 rings.
However, Reinsdorf told the player that he would end up regretting the offered deal, something that proved very incorrect. In his book, Lazenby claimed that Jordan was angry after Reinsdorf’s comment.
There is little doubt that the Bulls chairman was simply looking to do what he was infamous for. However, MJ had other ideas and decided that he will not continue to be underpaid by the franchise.
