Sunday 25 June 2017

The biggest ever endorsement wedge in sport

Which sportsman has earned the most dosh from endorsements in a single year? Not golf's Tiger Woods. Not basketball's Michael Jordan. And certainly not football's David Beckham.

The answer is George Forman. Just about everyone will remember the George Foreman lean, mean grilling machine, a counter-top grill designed to drain out the fat, which rode the early healthy eating wave. Foreman having retired once from boxing, been a preacher and gone back to pugilism, was invited to a trade fair in Las Vegas in 1995. There he met a man who had been trying to market the grill, but with little success. That man saw for himself how popular and personable Foreman was - and also a big carnivore. But he didn't have the cash to do the normal up front endorsement fee. So he offered George a cut of future profits. The men hit it off and Foreman, perhaps surprisingly, agreed to the deal. Rebranded under George's name and face it became a huge success. Foreman, on 45% of the profits, hoped he might gross a million dollars in total out of the deal. After a slow burn start (sorry) they soon couldn't make them quickly enough to meet demand and Foreman's monthly cheques, initially modest, were approaching $4 million by 1999. That year he sold out his stake for a lump sum of $137.5 million, the most any athlete has made from endorsements in a single year. Well that's what I read but not long afterwards CNN reckoned* it was over five years and might have be exceeded by Jordan's unpublicised deal with Nike, though a more recent book** pooh poohs that. But it's a great story and, either way, it's more than George's lifetime earnings from boxing. One can only say "gorgeous", Foreman's nickname.

Even stranger, while Foreman sold the rights to use his name in perpetuity (which generally means 80 years - a commercial manager I know has a saying "irrevocable isn't never, perpetual isn't for ever") he felt he'd been sacked and, while he had some ongoing obligations, willingly continued to promote the product and go to the factory. The story appears in huge detail on CNN's website (see below).

Not that I know of anyone who ever owned one. Oh, maybe one; we remember it being on someone we know's wedding gift list.

* CNN Money, June 1 2003. Gorgeous George - the George Foreman lean mean fat-reducing grilling machine....is a phenomenon
**Bouts of Mania, Richard Hoffer, Aurum. The book covers the 6 famous fights featuring combinations of Frazier, Ali and Foreman between 1971 and 1975, including the Foreman-Ali 'Rumble in the Jungle' which Ali won against all expectations, using his 'rope-a-dope' tactic to weather the Foreman storm before knocking him out.


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