Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Michael Jordan, NBA, Basketball
John McDougall
Michael Jordan does not typically sign autographs for other sportspeople for a good reason - but the basketball GOAT has made an exception for one person in particular.
The 61-year-old may well have been retired for more than 20 years but his appeal lives on thanks to his extraordinary career, much of which was spent with the Chicago Bulls, then latterly with the Washington Wizards in the closing stages of his time on the court.
The six-time NBA Champion enjoyed a memorable spell with the Bulls as he was crowned the MVP in the NBA Finals a total of six times.
He was also named the NBA's Most Valuable Player overall on five instances and is seen by many as basketball's GOAT.
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Jordan also entered the sneaker market through his partnership with Nike and the iconic Air Jordans, while he also appeared on the big screen thanks to appearing in the 1996 film Space Jam.
The former basketball player has had a golden rule of not signing autographs for fans, which followed after he signed a deal with trading cards company Upper Deck back in 1992.
However, it has emerged that Jordan has in fact broken that rule of his and has done so for a NASCAR driver who hatched an ambitious plan to get his signature on record and it duly worked.
And the sportsperson who managed to obtain Jordan's signature is NASCAR driver Kurt Busch, who once revealed how the plan came to pass.
Busch managed to obtain one of Jordan's signed NBA rookie cards after he did a deal with the NBA GOAT to do so after he delivered his first win for Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s 23XI Racing team in 2022.
Speaking to the Stacking Pennies Podcast with Corey LaJoie in 2023, Busch said: "A lightbulb went off in my head. I went, I can get an MJ rookie card and I’ll come up with a plan to get him to sign it.
"I ask Denny, team owner, 'hey, I have this plan, have MJ sign this card, I want to give it to him, because his birthday was the Daytona 500 weekend, give it to him as a birthday gift'."
Busch outlined how his discussion with Jordan went and how the plan unfolded and was ultimately fulfilled.
He continued: "I go, 'MJ, I’ve got you something!'. Hand him this little brown paper bag and he’s like, 'you don’t have to give me anything'. He looks at it and goes, 'man, you paid a pretty penny for this didn’t you?'
"I said, 'I’ve got something else' and I pull out a sharpie. I said, 'if you sign that, you keep it, you hold onto it, but when we win together, I get it back'. And he said, 'I’m going to get you a good one', I heard him mumble that. A good signature.
“We win Kansas. Four, five months later, the card shows up."