I was flipping through channels last night and came across Shaq selling watches on HSN. My immediate reaction was that this guy is flat broke and is whoring himself out for any nickel he can get. However, after some brief research, I’ve concluded that this is not the case.
It’s reported that Shaq is worth $350 million.
Shaq was quickly becoming a huge star, exploring careers in the rap and film industry appearing in films such as Blue Chips and Kazamm. In 1996 O’Neal was part of the gold medal winning Olympic basketball team. During the Olympics Shaq announced his plans to join the Los Angeles Lakers as part of a seven year $121 million deal. In 2000, Shaquille and the Lakers won the NBA championship. They would go on to win the title two more years in a row. In 2005 Shaq singed a 5-year contract with the Miami Heat for $100 million. Shaquille is now a frequent commentator on NBA games and still appears in many commercials.
He has endorsement deals with companies like Icy Hot, Gold Bond, Buick, Zales, and others. He is the joint owner of 155 Five Guys Burgers restaurants, 17 Auntie Annie’s Pretzels restaurants, 150 car washes, 40 24-hour fitness centers, a shopping center, a movie theater, and several Las Vegas nightclubs.
Now it all makes sense. He’s just pimping out his own line of watches called “DRONE” which seems like a stupid name. I must add though that the Home Shopping Network does a great job of making it easy to buy watches. This popped up on my TV which I think is a simplified means of picking up a phone. I wonder if the order is tied in directly with Comcast?
I hate commenting on my own post (just kidding, I love it) but there was another odd interaction when Shaq was taking a selfie of him and the girl and she said, “ohhh, your phone is just like mine with a crack in the screen”. This made me think he was poor. He then also pulled some game saying, “you don’t need any filters.”