R.A.

George Foreman says a countertop grill paid him as much as $5 million a month. In 1999, its manufacturer agreed to pay $137.5 million for the permanent worldwide right to keep using his name on its appliances. By then Foreman had already made one of the strangest second acts in sports. He returned to boxing after a ten-year retirement, regained the heavyweight title at 45, and turned the intimidating fighter of the 1970s into one of the most trusted faces on television. A friend watched companies pay Foreman to appear in commercials and asked why he kept making other brands successful instead of getting his own product. The product they found was a small two-sided grill. Foreman did not receive a large guaranteed endorsement fee. He and his partners formed a joint venture whose payoff depended on the grill actually selling. At first, Foreman barely touched the prototype. His wife cooked him a burger on it, the fat drained away, and he agreed to put his name behind it. The first royalty check was about $1,500. The next was $15,000. Then the product moved from infomercials into millions of kitchens. “The checks were coming in $5 million a month.” That is the financial difference between renting a reputation and participating in what it sells. A normal endorsement pays the celebrity a fee. Foreman's arrangement let the payment rise with the product. Eventually those recurring payments became expensive for Salton. Its financial filing says the company paid $137.5 million in cash, stock and a promissory note for perpetual worldwide appliance rights to the George Foreman name. The filing says the transaction eliminated substantial royalty expense. Foreman had spent decades being paid to fight and a few years being paid when somebody bought a grill. The second arrangement made him more money. Watch the former heavyweight champion explain how a product he almost ignored began sending him checks worth millions every month.