George Foreman’s home in Huffman, Texas, went on the market this month for $6 million. Long before that, he made more money from a kitchen grill than from boxing, and he almost said no.
“No way. I’m not going to put my name on that. I want a steak, not a pancake,” Foreman said when the grill was first pitched to him, according to The Washington Post, as cited by The Takeout.
Five years after it launched, the company selling it paid him $137.5 million for the rights to his name.
A Grill Nobody Wanted
Michael Boehm of Batavia, Illinois, invented the grill and filed the patent in 1993. Salton started selling it in 1994 as the Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine, according to the grill’s history.
Boehm had a hard time getting anyone interested. “They initially seemed indifferent, even skeptical. That was true of just about everyone I showed it to,” he said, according to AfroTech.
Foreman was 45 at the time and still fighting. He changed his mind after his wife cooked him a burger on it.
“I ate it and to my surprise, it was pretty good,” he told CBS News in 2003.
No Money Up Front
Foreman didn’t ask for an upfront fee. He took a share of the profits on every grill sold instead, about 40 to 45 percent, depending on the account.
When the first checks came in, he told CBS, his reaction was, “Wow, this thing might work.” Years later, he told AARP, “There were months I was being paid $8 million per month,” AfroTech reported.
The $137.5 Million Buyout
As sales grew, Salton wanted to renegotiate, CBS reported. In 1999, the company paid Foreman $137.5 million in cash and stock for the exclusive right to use his name on its food preparation products, according to The Takeout.
That was more than he made in his entire boxing career, The Takeout reported. Boehm, who came up with the grill, never received royalties.
Salton’s sales went from $183 million in 1997 to $922 million in 2002, according to The Takeout. More than 100 million Foreman grills have been sold worldwide, according to The Quota.
The House in Texas
Foreman died in March 2025 at 76, his family announced. He won Olympic gold in 1968 and was a two-time heavyweight champion of the world.
His property in Huffman, about 40 miles northeast of downtown Houston, was listed on Oct. 8 for $6 million, Yahoo Autos reported. The listing covers 13.49 acres and includes an 11,000-square-foot garage. The cars that once filled it were sold in a no-reserve Hagerty Marketplace auction in 2023, where 48 vehicles brought in about $2.9 million, including a 2005 Ford GT that went for $385,200.
For more stories like this, read how an 18-year-old LeBron James turned down a $10 million check from Reebok and how Nike’s 1984 bet on Michael Jordan paid off.
