Michael Jordan

Crowdfund Michael Jordan's house via fractional NFT ownership

Shaan pitches buying Michael Jordan's long-stalled Chicago mansion (listed ~$20M, dropped to ~$14M) for ~$10M by crowdfunding the audience and using fractional ownership through an NFT or Rally Road.

“I said, or we could just get this podcast. We could crowdfund $10 million and we could basically fractional— you could do fractional ownership either through an NFT or on Rally Road or whatever. I was like, let's buy Michael Jordan's house.”

Steal thisUse your audience as the capital pool — crowdfund a trophy asset via fractional NFT ownership instead of raising a fund.

Crowdfund Michael Jordan's unsellable $13M mansion as art

MJ's 56,000 sq ft house has been cut from $30M to $13M over a decade and still won't sell, even as his rookie card nears $2M. Sam and Shaan float buying it collectively and treating it as a monument rather than a house.

“It was a, it's a 56,000 square foot house and and it was originally listed for $30 million. Now it's been price cut, price cut, price cut all the way down to $13 million, and it's still not selling. And this is after The Last Dance. It's after this giant boom in, like, trading card collectibles. Like, the Michael Jordan rookie card is going for almost $2 million, and his 56,000-square-foot house can't sell for $13 million?”

Treat a trophy asset like art, not a house

Shaan reframes MJ's mansion: instead of a museum needing permits, treat it as a monument and fractionalize it. If a painting sells for $85M, a relic of the GOAT should hold value when crowdfunded among ~5,000 buyers at $2,000 each.

“You don't treat it like a house, you treat it like it's a monument, it's a piece of art. And there are paintings that sell for $800, you know, $85 million, and so if a painting could sell for $85 million, I think Michael Jordan's house, this relic of the greatest basketball player of all time, is going to be worth something. And so the idea would be you crowdfund it, you get, I don't know, 5,000 people to each pitch in $2,000, you buy the thing out for $10 million, and, uh, you hold it as a piece of art.”

Steal thisFractionalize an iconic asset and sell ownership stakes like art shares.

Crowdfund the purchase of Michael Jordan's unsold mansion

Shaan pitches buying Michael Jordan's 56,000 sq ft Highland Park home — listed ~9 years ago at $29M, now cut in half — by crowdfunding 5,000 people at $2,500 each for fractional ownership, then turning it into a destination.

“So if you could get 5,000 people to each put in $2,500, then you can own a fractional share of Michael Jordan's house. You could, you could own a piece of this history and we could just buy it out, take it off the market and we could own this thing.”

Steal thisUse crowdfunding to buy a celebrity asset off-market so the buyer base doubles as your built-in evangelists and visitors.

Turn the Jordan house into a Museum-of-Ice-Cream-style photo experience

Shaan's twist on the museum: make it a modern, photo-heavy walkthrough like the Museum of Ice Cream — visitors pose in Jordan's bed, in giant Air Jordans — and leave with 10 Instagram-worthy shots that market the place for free.

“I think you could make it a museum that's like a modern museum that we've been talking about, like the Museum of Ice Cream or something like that, where the tour is very heavy photo-based. And so you're, you know, you're going through and it's all these different photo exhibits of, you know, you in Michael Jordan's bed and, you know, wearing, you know, a pair of his Air Jordans or standing in a pair of giant Air Jordans or something like that.”

Steal thisDesign every room of an attraction to produce a shareable photo so visitors do your marketing for free.

The 'Obama House' playbook: a celebrity Airbnb

Instead of a museum, Sam suggests a Jordan Airbnb. He points to the 'Obama House' near where he's staying — bought for $7M, now its own Wikipedia page — that rents on Airbnb for $6,000 a night or up to $180K a month.

“But they rent it out right now on Airbnb for $6,000 a night. Or if it's booked all the way up, $180K a month. And it's branded as the Obama House. I think that you could absolutely crush it with a Jordan Airbnb house.”

Steal thisBrand a property around a famous prior occupant and command a multiple on the nightly rate.

Rally turns illiquid collectibles into liquid fractional assets

Shaan explains the Rally Road model: by selling fractional shares in blocks of ~$1,000-$1,500, you no longer need a single $15M buyer. Fractional ownership creates a market of buyers and sellers, introducing liquidity to assets that previously had none.

“The point of Rally is that they take things that are not assets and they make them not liquid assets, they make them liquid assets. So because you can own a fractional share, now there's liquidity. Any one person who owns a piece of Michael Jordan's house can swap it for anybody else who wants to own a piece of it. So you don't need a $15 million buyer.”