Barack Obama couldn’t afford a Bulls ticket when MJ arrived in Chicago



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After being selected No. 3 overall by Chicago in the 1984 NBA draft, Michael Jordan had an immediate impact on the Bulls’ organization.

Just weeks after his professional career, “everyone on that Bull team … knew he was the best player we had,” said former team general manager Rod Thorn in an episode of “The Last Dance,” a 10-part documentary on The Rise of Jordan and the Dynasty He Built in Chicago.

The series was originally supposed to launch during the NBA Finals in June, but with sports leagues and events suspended amid the coronavirus pandemic, ESPN, which co-produced “The Last Dance” with Netflix, moved the date of Launch to offer viewers an escape. Since April 19, ESPN has released two episodes every Sunday night.

The first episode details Jordan’s early basketball career, at UNC and then with the Bulls from 1984. His rookie year, everyone in Chicago wanted to see the young phenomenon play: the stadium went from being two-thirds empty to being sold. in each game, documentary reports.

Michael Jordan played at the University of North Carolina

Focus on sport

A Chicago resident could not afford a ticket at the time: A young Barack Obama, who had recently graduated from Columbia University and moved to Chicago to work with the Developing Communities Project. “When Michael first came to town, he didn’t have the money to buy tickets to a Bulls game, even the discount ones on the day,” recalled the former president. “I was pretty broke.”

In the early 1980s, Obama had undergraduate loans from Columbia University, where he earned a degree in political science in 1983. He would later take more loans to attend Harvard Law School from 1988-1991.

Combined, he and his wife Michelle, who also attended Harvard Law, owed a total of $ 120,000 in student debt.

“We don’t come from wealthy families,” Obama told a North Carolina audience in 2012. “When we graduated from college and law school, we were in deep debt. When we got married, we became poor.”

For years, Obama lived frugally as a student with little money. He was driving a ramshackle yellow Datsun with a “four-inch rusty hole” in the car’s floor, as the former First Lady describes in her book “Becoming.” Through it, she “could see the pavement running below us.”

The couple did not finish paying their debts until they turned 40.

Obama, who became president when he was 47, is now worth millions, thanks to the book and Netflix deals. Also, after leaving office, former presidents remain on the government payroll and earn an annual pension of approximately $ 200,000 (in office, the president earns $ 400,000 a year).

It’s safe to say that the basketball fanatic could afford to be a Bulls season ticket holder if he wanted to. Of course, he couldn’t see the best of all time in action – it’s been almost two decades since Jordan played his last game at the United Center.

Episodes seven and eight of “The Last Dance” will premiere on Sunday, May 10 at 9 p.m. ET. It will air on ESPN in the US. USA And on Netflix outside the US USA

Do not miss NBA legend Scottie Pippen started out as a college team manager before earning a spot on the team.

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