Magic Johnson is a very wealthy man, but he could’ve been in a different stratosphere if he had made just one key decision back in his playing days.
As the Lakers great gears up for his “They Call Me Magic” documentary on Apple TV, the NBA All-Star has been opening up about his playing days. Johnson recently revealed why he chose Converse over Nike and he has been kicking himself over it ever since.
Back then, Nike was only able to offer him $1 for every pair of shoes sold and 100,000 shares in stock options starting at just $0.18, while Converse was willing to give him $100,000 a year.
“Now, I’ve never heard of stock at 19-years-old. I had to take the money; I had to take the cash. Man, I would have been a trillionaire by now. If you think of getting that stock in 1979 and what it’s worth today? Yikes. It kills me every single time I think about that. Man, Michael Jordan would have been making me so much money,” he said during a recent interview as the crowd erupted in laughter.
Johnson previously brought this up on The Ellen DeGeneres show in 2017.
“I didn’t know anything about stocks at that time – boy, did I make a mistake. I’m still kicking myself. I could be making money off of everyone buying Nikes right now!”
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As the LA Times reports, he gets $2 million a year from his Converse endorsement.
