Julius Erving Reveals His $6M Nickname Was a Myth, He Made Just $500K a Year

Julius Erving says the nickname was a myth — and he has the math to prove it.

During an appearance on the Beyond the Curve show with Sanya Richards-Ross, Erving explained that the "Six Million Dollar Man" label that followed him from his 1976 move to the Philadelphia 76ers never matched what he actually earned. The $6 million figure, he said, represented the total deal that took him from the New York Nets to the Sixers — not his salary.

"So the Nets got three million dollars, and I got a five-year contract for three million dollars," Erving said. "So I don't know why they call me the Six Million Dollar Man."

Erving's actual pay: roughly $500,000 per year, per his own account. The separate $3 million compensation to the Nets has not been independently confirmed beyond Erving's description of the deal.

"That's how news gets reported. Exaggeration," Erving said. "So I'm walking around with this six million on my back, and I ain't even close to six million. I'm getting like five hundred thousand a year, which was okay."

The nickname stuck partly because of the popular TV series *The Six Million Dollar Man*, which aired in the same era. For a player whose athleticism seemed superhuman, the comparison was too fitting to fade — even if the paycheck told a different story.

In the 1970s, $500,000 a year was still a substantial salary. But Erving's point is that perception and reality were wildly different. The label made him sound like the highest-paid figure in sports when, by his account, the real number was a fraction of it.

THE REAL NUMBERS

The numbers behind the deal were split down the middle. Half of the famous $6 million went to the Nets as compensation for Erving. The other $3 million was his five-year contract with the Sixers, per his account on *Beyond the Curve*.

That worked out to roughly $500,000 per year. Erving said he was "getting like five hundred thousand a year, which was okay."