Annual sales for Basketball HOFer Michael Jordan products on eBay -- "fueled by Nike’s Air Jordan line" -- were $175M over the past 12 months, according to data cited by Kurt Badenhausen of FORBES. Data from Terapeak, eBay's leading analytics provider, also shows that Cavaliers F LeBron James is the "second best-selling athlete" with $42M worth of goods sold, followed by Lakers G Kobe Bryant at $25.5M. NBAers "outpace stars in other sports partly due to sales of their signature shoe lines." To put Jordan's eBay sales figure into perspective, the annual Apple iPad market is $198M on the site, while the markets for Apple MacBooks/laptops ($160M) and Apple iPods ($66M) "are both smaller." Jordan's non-shoe business was $9.7M on eBay between August and October, or "almost six times the sales" of James' merch. Jordan's market share in basketball "is north of 50%, and MJ's annual royalty checks from Nike made him the highest-paid retired athlete in the world" with earnings of $90M last year (FORBES.com, 12/18).
IF THE SHOE FITS: ESPN.com's Darren Rovell noted a pair of Converse shoes that Jordan wore when he played in college sold for $33,387" on Thursday morning. Grey Flannel Auctions, which sold the shoes, said that they were "consigned by a high school teammate" of Jordan. Grey Flannel execs "held back a pair" of '84 Converse shoes that Jordan wore for the Gold-Medal game at the '84 L.A. Games for a future auction. Jordan "wore Converse throughout his days at North Carolina because, at the time, the company was paying UNC coach Dean Smith about $10,000 a year to have his players wear its shoes." Converse "made a pitch to Jordan when he turned pro" after the '84 Olympics, but its $100,000 a year offer "fell $400,000 short of Nike's deal" (ESPN.com, 12/18).
