- George Foreman, who has died aged 76, was a heavyweight boxing world champion and Olympic gold medalist.
- Out of the ring, Foreman became a household name for a different reason: his namesake grill.
- He once said he made “much more” than $200 million from the grills, surpassing his boxing career earnings.
George Foreman, whose death at the age of 76 was announced on Friday, was first and foremost a heavyweight world champion and Olympic gold medalist who won numerous titles over the course of his long boxing career.
But outside the ring, Foreman came to be associated with a game-changing kitchen appliance.
First introduced more than 30 years ago, the George Foreman grill — officially the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine — became a cultural phenomenon thanks to its innovative design, which introduced fast, smokeless, indoor grilling to health-conscious consumers in the 1990s.
Foreman’s own impressive physique and affable personality made him the perfect pitchman to sell the grills — and sell they did.
The grills became synonymous with the boxing star as well as healthy eating
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Foreman signed an endorsement deal with manufacturers Salton Inc. (later known as Russell Hobbs, Inc., and now merged with Spectrum Brands) for an undisclosed sum in 1994. That’s the same year he regained the world heavyweight title at the age of 45.
The following year, he began appearing in infomercials promoting the product in which Foreman enthusiastically declared: “It’s so good, I put my name on it!”
The grills were a hit with consumers, including members of the Trump family, The New York Times reported in 2002 when it described the grill as “the chicest household appliance on the Upper East Side and certainly the trendiest gift item.”
The worldwide popularity of the George Foreman grill resulted in sales of 100 million units in the 15 years since its launch, according to Foreman’s 2009 book, “Knockout Entrepreneur.” Several George Foreman grills are on Amazon’s best-sellers list even today.
“No doubt the grill has been more successful,” Foreman told The Motley Fool in 2002, adding that “people recognize me more now” as a result of his association with the appliance.
Foreman made a fortune in his second career as a product endorser
Foreman swung a pretty lucrative deal with Salton Inc. for the first few years of sales. Salton CEO Leonhard Dreimann told Bloomberg in 2004 that Foreman was being paid about 40% of the profits from the grills, generating a $4.5 million monthly paycheck at the height of its success.
Foreman received an even bigger payout in 1999 when Salton bought the rights to use his name on the product in perpetuity for $127 million in cash and $10 million in stock. Foreman got about 75% of the payout, which was structured as a long-term capital gain to reduce the sellers’ tax liability.
Coming two years after his retirement from boxing, it set Foreman up financially for the rest of his life.
Speaking to the AARP in 2014, Foreman said he made “much more” than $200 million from the grills and was once earning as much as $8 million a month.
It’s not clear how much he made from boxing, but the biggest payout from his career was the $5 million fee for the “Rumble in the Jungle” against Muhammad Ali in 1974.
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The George Foreman grill almost didn’t happen
Before Salton approached Foreman, the grill endorsement deal was offered to Hulk Hogan.
The world would have got the Hulk Hogan grill had the WWE star picked up the phone when a representative from Salton called him in 1994.
As Hogan recalled on an episode of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” in 2008, he said he received a voicemail stating that there were two possible endorsement deals he was looking to place: a blender and a grill.
Foreman didn’t miss his call and opted for the grill, meaning that when Hogan called back he was offered the blender.
“George got the lean, mean grilling machine, and I got a blender that when you put double-AA batteries in, it would fart and then turn off,” he said.
