Free I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It by Charles Barkley Page A

getting a $700,000 royalty check from the sale of shoes that cost $125 a pair, then a lot of people are making money on me.”
    And that’s nothing compared to what people have made off Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. Everybody has made money on them. Look at the boost television has gotten from Tiger Woods. The television executives must lose their minds if Tiger isn’t on the leader board on Sunday, because he’s the money generator. I know they made a ton of money on me because I see my jerseys and shoes everywhere.
    The guys producing this stuff, the guys who own these companies and teams, are way too smart to be losing money. And we ain’t getting the first cut. They’re all megamillionaires. Remember what Jerry Krause said when he broke up the Chicago Bulls. He said, “It ain’t the players, it’s the organization.” The organization ran the greatest player ever out of Chicago. The club is still doing well financially. The team is appreciating. They’ve got a new arena. That’s the perfect example of sports being a business more than anything else. Everybody who plays professionally ought to stop and think, “If they did that to Michael Jordan they’ll sure as hell do it to me.” Was I shocked? No. I remember when Michael got his first $30 million contract, in 1996. We were in Lake Tahoe. And he said, “Can you believe Jerry Reinsdorf told me, ‘There’s no man that’s worth this much money’?” This is the guy who made Jerry Reinsdorf, the Bulls chairman, a billionaire, made it so that the franchise is playing in a shiny new arena, gave an identity to a team that didn’t exist on any national level before Michael got there, and damn sure hadn’t won anything. He played at Kmart prices, relatively speaking, before that. It’s the best example ever of sports being a business first and foremost. It’s the best example of what revenues are generated, what owners take away and what players take away.
    As long as the Bulls were getting Michael for below-market value, everything was cool. But then when they had to start paying him, no. So when Scottie’s contract was up, it’s like, “Nope, we’re not paying both of y’all.” The biggest thing of all in this is merchandising. It’s a billion-dollar-plus business. Tell me they weren’t making money. If Michael could have gotten one dollar for every No. 23 jersey I’ve seen with my own eyes in my travels, he’d have more money than most Third World countries.
    The funny thing about this is that Michael is so damn cheap. Michael ain’t the most popular guy in Las Vegas. He’ll win $1 million in the casino and not tip the people. I don’t like to just walk by homeless people. If I see a homeless person, I want to give them some money, even if it’s just a little something. Michael saw me giving a homeless person some money one day and grabbed me and said, “Quit doing that. If they’re able to ask you for some spare change they can say, ‘Welcome to McDonald’s, can I help you please?’ “
    As important as money is in the business of professional sports, there’s real irony in that you can’t allow it to be in the equation when you walk into the gym for practice or for games or for a meeting or workouts. You just can’t. Athletes are just like anybody else. We’ve always cared about money. We care about setting ourselves up for life and being able to take care of our families and friends, and we want to afford nice things and a great lifestyle. But we did not talk seriously about contracts in the locker room for most of my career. Lately, that’s started to change. You’ve got guys now talking about whether they’re going to get the max, or whether they’re going to opt out of their contracts. We never discussed that stuff during the season, and it never mattered when we got in a room as a team. If a guy even thought he was going to discuss that stuff, we’d say, “Hey, let’s go and play, and all that stuff will be worked out