Michael Jordan grew up in North Carolina rooting for… the Cincinnati Bengals?
That surprising revelation came from Cris Collinsworth on Thursday prior to the Bengals’ prime-time matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
How the NBC football analyst and Pro Football Focus co-owner came to learn this little fact is almost as good a story, too.
The GOAT Loved the Stripes
Before you ask, yes, he meant the greatest basketball player of all time, not the former offensive lineman named Michael Jordan who played for the Bengals in 2019 and ’20. (Though that Michael Jordan grew up in Cincinnati, so he probably also was a Bengals fan, for what it’s worth.)
This came to light after a golf outing both Collinsworth and Jordan took part in as NBC was courting Jordan to join its NBA coverage set to relaunch this fall.
“We’re at NBC, and we just played his golf course,” Collinsworth told Kay Adams on her show Up and Adams Show with Kay Adams. “And so we’re there, and Mike was there, and all the brass from NBC is literally begging him to try and come work for NBC.
“So I went up and just sat down. Well, another one of my bosses came along — I won’t say who (John), but he came by and he was like, ‘Chris, we’ve got a table for you down here.’
“I was like, ‘Oh, okay, you don’t want me sitting with Michael. Okay, no problem.’ So I got up and walked down to the table. As soon as I walked away, apparently Michael said to the group, ‘You know, I grew up a Bengals fan back in that era and used to watch him all the time.’
“So now my friend had to come back and say, ‘Hey, we really want you to come back here with Michael’s table.'”
How Did That Happen?
The Bengals joined the NFL as an expansion team in 1968, and Collinsworth was a Bengals receiver from 1981-88, an era in which Cincinnati went to two Super Bowls.
Jordan grew up in North Carolina in the ‘60s and ‘70s, so his choice of teams is certainly curious even though the Carolina Panthers did not join the league until 1995.
Whether or not Jordan still roots for the Bengals is unclear, but this still has to count as one of the most random sports facts we’ve heard recently.
Perhaps we will find out more from Jordan when he begins his role as an NBA analyst for NBC, which was the league’s primary broadcaster in his heyday with the Chicago Bulls (1984-98).
What Will Jordan Do for NBC?
That has been a big question since it was revealed he will have a role with the network, and Collinsworth shared a few tantalizing tidbits on it as well.
“It will be a deep dive into the brain of Michael Jordan,” Collinsworth said.
“The things that you would really want to know from Michael Jordan if you got a chance to just sit down and have a conversation with Michael Jordan — no cameras, just a couple glasses of wine, and just enjoy a great conversation about all the things you knew about him or thought you knew about him watching the series and the whole thing, you’re gonna get that…
“It’s like detailed, way-inside-the-brain of the greatest basketball player that ever lived.”
