Jim Brown - Other Post-football Activities

Other Post-football Activities

Brown served as a color analyst on NFL telecasts for CBS in 1977–78.

In 1983, seventeen years after retiring from professional football, Brown mused about coming out of retirement to play for the Los Angeles Raiders when it appeared that Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris would break his all-time rushing record. Brown disliked Harris' style of running, criticizing the Steeler running back's tendency to run out of bounds, a marked contrast to Brown's approach of fighting for every yard and taking on the oncoming tackler. Eventually, Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears broke the record on October 7, 1984, with Brown having ended thoughts of a comeback. Harris himself, who retired after the 1984 season after playing eight games with the Seattle Seahawks, fell short of Brown's mark. Another Steeler running back, Jerome Bettis (whose running style more resembled Brown's), would later surpass Brown.

Brown's autobiography was published in 1989 by Zebra Books. It was titled Out of Bounds and was co-written with Steve Delsohn. He was a subject of the book Jim: The Author's Self-Centered Memoir of the Great Jim Brown, by James Toback.

In 1993, Brown was hired as a color commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a role he occupied for the first six pay-per-view events.

In 1988 Brown founded the Amer-I-Can Program. He currently works with kids caught up in the gang scene in Los Angeles and Cleveland through this Amer-I-Can program. It is a life management skills organization that operates in inner cities and prisons.

Brown was convicted of misdemeanor vandalism in 1999 for damaging the automobile of his wife, Monique. Rather than participate in domestic violence counseling, community service, and probation, Brown chose instead to serve several months in jail, because, he said, "The conditions of my sentence were ridiculous.”

In 2002, film director Spike Lee released the film Jim Brown: All-American; a retrospective on Brown's professional career and personal life.

In 2008, Brown initiated a lawsuit against Sony and EA Sports for using his likeness in the Madden NFL video game series. He claimed that he "never signed away any rights that would allow his likeness to be used".

As of 2008, Brown was serving as an Executive Advisor to the Cleveland Browns, assisting to build relationships with the team's players and to further enhance the NFL’s wide range of sponsored programs through the team's player programs department.