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In the land where anything is possible, America has made it possible for scores of sports stars to find second careers in business. NBA legend Michael Jordan is worth $2 billion thanks to Nike. Tony Hawk now hawks his own brand of skateboards. And before his fall from grace, football great O.J. Simpson made Hertz Rent-A-Car a household name.
But few stories in the sports-to-branding pantheon are as colorful, and unlikely, as that of George Foreman, who died Friday at the age of 76.
Though he was initially a reluctant advocate for the Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine that would bear his name, Foreman showed himself as gifted a marketer as he was a fighter. His mixture of broad-shouldered authority and fatherly charm made him one of the most successful pitchmen of the 20th century.
Born in Marshall, Texas, to a family of seven children, Foreman endured a difficult boyhood. (“As a child, I was sometimes so hungry,” he once said, “I used to dream that one day I’d get locked in a grocery store.”) Amid an adolescence as a “juvenile delinquent” (again, his words), Foreman saw a TV spot for Job Corps and began training as a bricklayer. An instructor turned him on to boxing.
Foreman won gold in the 1968 Olympics, but it was two other events in the ring that would make him a legend. In the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” match in Zaire, Foreman knocked out Muhammad Ali to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Twenty years later, at the age of 45, he sent Michael Moorer to the canvas to become the oldest boxer to hold the heavyweight title.
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Foreman beat Ali in 1974 (top), then reclaimed the heavyweight title 20 years later by sending Moorer to the canvas.JOHN GURZINSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Following the example of other out-to-pasture athletes, “Big George,” as he was known, began taking on endorsement work for brands. A 1992 Doritos spot starred him and his five sons, all named George. (The kicker: “Four out of five George Foremans prefer the taste of new Doritos.”)
A year later, he posed as a boxing coach in a Meineke spot, yelling “I’m not going to pay a lot for this muffler!” The 6-foot-4 Foreman also appeared for the big and tall clothing brand Casual Male.
In one way or another, these advertisements borrowed heavily from Foreman’s pugilistic persona: a refrigerator-sized ruffian not to be messed with. But Foreman was, in fact, a deeply spiritual man—converted when, he later said, God had spoken to him in the locker room after he’d lost a fight.
The experience softened Foreman’s rough edges, imbuing him with an unexpectedly avuncular demeanor. “There was a transformation from a young, hard character who felt a heavyweight champion should carry himself with menace to a very affectionate personality,” Boxing commentator Larry Merchant told the New York Times in 2015.
Whether by design or happenstance, this gentler George Foreman was the one who emerged during late-night informercials for the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine. Colloquially known as the George Foreman Grill, the device was essentially a grooved sandwich press canted to drain off the grease.
“In this machine, the fat goes—the flavor stays,” said Foreman who, with an infectious smile and a shaved head, resembled a 250-pound baby.
As ADWEEK reported in 2018, five years into the endorsement deal, over 12% of U.S. homes had one. Today, manufacturer Spectrum Brands estimates that it’s sold 100 million of the grills.
Foreman would always remember the moment his career as a marketer may have surpassed his calling as a boxer. It happened in 1997 after Shannon Briggs defeated him.
“I lost my last professional boxing match,” Foreman said, “[and] received a check for $1 million for the grill.”
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