by Brendan Dunne
Michael Jordan is officially on the Forbes list, which confirms what many sneakerheads could have already guessed: he's making a killing off sneaker sales.
Helping to put things in perspective is this chart from Business Insider, which pits MJ's sneaker sales from 2012 and 2013 against those from Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and Derrick Rose. Jordan is at the top with a whopping $2.5 billion in sneaker sales in 2013, and Derrick Rose trails the pack with $40 million.
Seeing Jordan so far ahead shouldn't be a surprise, but it's interesting that Derrick Rose is in the same realm as Kobe Bryant in terms of sneaker sales. Also interesting here is the massive jump made by Kevin Durant from 2012 to 2013, a jump aided by the popularity of the Nike Zoom KD IV and the increased production numbers for his line.
Jordan of course only sees a portion of these sales go back into his pocket. Forbes reports that His Airness personally made upwards of $90 million from sneaker sales in 2013.
