Growing up on the rural farm near Wilmington, around Highway 117, Michael Jordan and his siblings would often venture out into the nearby woods to play. They would pretend to be hunters as they held their BB guns; Occasionally taking aim at each other. One day, Larry successfully hit MJ’s leg, but the younger ‘Mike’ wasn’t going to back down. He retaliated, narrowly missing Larry’s eye. These formative years shaped not just Jordan’s competitiveness, which he would later be known for in the NBA, but also his love for North Carolina. He created memories there that he carries today; Memories that molded Mike into the Michael Jordan we know today.

Post retiring from the NBA, he purchased the Charlotte Hornets in 2010—then still known as the Charlotte Bobcats. It was a way of staying true to his roots. Carolina was his home. But come 2023, he was ready to sell the team. The deal was finalized, and the NBA’s board of governors approved it. Jordan sold the majority stake, a $3 billion deal, to a group led by Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin but retained a minority stake. And in October 2023, the team played its first game in 4,970 days without ‘MJ’ as the majority owner. Yet before this big decision to sell his stake was made, he did a final act that he thought would benefit the team. What was it?

Before the sale of his stakes in the Charlotte Hornets, Jordan flew all the way to Nashville to meet a friend, Eric Church. The two often go golfing and share a great friendship. The American singer revealed that Jordan offered him the chance to buy stakes in the Hornets because he wanted someone from North Carolina to represent the team. So in a new interview with The Steam Room podcast on YouTube, Church said: 

“We just kind of started you know hanging out a little bit. We opened a bar in Nashville called Chiefs and he came up there and then he kind of got me into being an owner with the Hornets. He was selling his stake and wanted some local people from North Carolina that would represent a percentage of the Hornets, so I did that. And since then we’ve been on a couple trips together and hung out together and it’s been a lot of fun.” And that’s how Church became one of the 20 owners of the team. In fact, he was present during the introductory press conference in Uptown led by Rick Schnall in 2023.

Interestingly, Eric Church is such a big fan of basketball that back in 2022, he even canceled a Texas concert just so that he could watch North Carolina play Duke in the Final Four! Later on, he admitted that it was “the most selfish thing” he had done with his fans. The American singer further continued on ‘The Steam Room’ podcast: “Just kind of going through that which to me was a childhood hero. I mean, I’m born in 77 and so you know 87 to 93-94, they were pretty good. He [Jordan] was pretty good. […] That was an indelible time for me. It has been great getting to know Mike and just being able to hand with him. And see him really as a person.” However, this isn’t the first time Church has talked about how things went down. 

Even in July 2024, he explained how ‘MJ’ was searching for some North Carolina representation for the team, and that’s how get came on board. “He’s a North Carolina kid, we’re both Tar Heels, and he talked about how important it was to have local ownership,” the 47-year-old stated.

Michael Jordan’s love for the Tar Heels!

The Chicago Bulls legend’s love for his college team is much more than his worldwide recognition and the money he earned from the pro league. His six championship titles with the Bulls made history. During this time, he also got into the Dream Team of 1992, which elevated him to global fame. But despite all this, he revealed in 2005 that it was his time with the Tar Heels and that he considers it his favorite.

His era with the Heels had its challenges, and it was the competition that was his favorite. “By the time I got to Chicago, I was drafted three, so everybody knew I was at least decent. But at North Carolina, when they recruited me and asked me to attend the university, it was an opportunity to prove myself. Up to that point, everybody had heard that this kid is pretty good, but we don’t know how good. He came from a small town. He wasn’t preseason All-American,” Jordan said. He has always appreciated the lesson he learnt from his former coach, Smith.

“The University of North Carolina really gave me the foundation that it took to become a basketball player. Up to then, I hadn’t been spoiled by the media spotlight. I was still raw.”

He found huge success playing in the NBA. With his Nike shoe deal and global fame, he landed further lucrative deals with Gatorade, Coca-Cola, and more. As per Spotrac, MJ reportedly made more than $90,000,000 during his 15-year NBA career. While all these are precious to him, above everything comes the competitiveness for MJ that keeps him going.