Michael Jordan's endorsement deals are finally starting to get true, real numbers attached to them. All because of a 6-year-old coupon to save two bucks on a piece of steak at a grocery store that doesn't even exist anymore.
The numbers, already more than half a billion dollars in the past decade, are a sensitive enough matter that major Jordan sponsors Nike, Gatorade, Upper Deck and 2K Sports requested that a judge restrict access to the courtroom exactly so this type of article couldn't be written.
Jordan is in a lawsuit against Dominick's Finer Foods, a Chicago-area grocery store that doesn't even operate anymore.
In 2009, Sports Illustrated magazine ran a special edition in Chicago (and North Carolina) congratulating Jordan when he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. About 30 percent of the 140,000-some copies were sold.
Dominick's, a now-shuttered subsidiary of Safeway, placed this ad in that special edition of SI: