On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Major League Baseball hit king Pete Rose racks in over $1M annually from signing autographs in Las Vegas. Rose, who’s now 72, lives in a condo just off the Vegas strip and writes his name for serious cash. Rose isn’t just doing one off card shows like some former MLB greats, he’s living up to his Charlie Hustle monicker with his business parter, Joie Casey, on Hit King, Inc., a company with a primary of activity of…selling Pete Rose autographs. Rose is on his daily grind.
From the WSJ post:
Since 2005, he has spent several hours per day, 15 to 25 days per month, 12 months per year signing his name for money. He signs and poses for photos with anyone who buys memorabilia from his business partners, with items such as baseballs and photos ranging from $75 to $800. And for this, Rose earns more than $1 million per year.
This isn’t a part time gig for Rose who acutely understands the numbers of the business, the importance of location and his target markets:
He knows that when he and Casey got started, they cleared around $3,000 per day in sales, a figure they quickly quadrupled. He knows that 2007 was their best year, with total sales reaching $3.6 million. And he knows that business travelers buy more memorabilia than partygoers. “I need conventions,” he said.
Rose also knows how it looks: the man banned for betting on baseball working in the capital of gambling. But he said his gig would not work anywhere else.
“Every three days, there’s different people,” he said. “People come here and they have money and they shop and they spend money.”
Rose who ended his career with 4,256 hits, still hasn’t been reinstated into baseball after his admission of betting on baseball games during his career.
