Sports Royalties
Sports players are like a whole other breed. They are the best at what they do and they stop at nothing to achieve that success. They are considered to be the lucky ones. Why? Because they make a ton of money just by playing the sports they love.
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But, of course, it’s nothing to get jealous of because these people spent a lot of time, energy and not to mention, dedication to get to where they are now. Motivation is their middle name and that’s not something you see everyday, especially these days. Like we said, they are a whole different breed. It’s amazing.
Maria Sharapova
This Russian professional tennis player has an estimated net worth of $195 million to date. She made her professional breakthrough at the age of 17 when she defeated Serena Williams back in 2004 at the Wimbledon final to win her first ever Grand Slam singles title and becoming the 3rd youngest woman to win the title.
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But it isn’t just tennis that she’s passionate about, she also has been featured in a lot of high-profile modeling gigs like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and in many advertisements with Nike, Prince and Canon, and as face of several fashion houses like Cole Haan.
Kevin Garnett
Kevin is considered a Minnesota Timberwolves legend and has a net worth of $190 million. When he first joined the team, he did right out of school. This led him to be known in the basketball world as the first player in over 20 years to pass the draft without any other experience elsewhere.
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He is also a multiple MVP with All-Star accreditations to his name and won an Olympic Gold Medal when he attended the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He is now retired from the sport but is still involved in broadcast journalism at the games and in 2011, he made investments into the world of soccer – he is a shareholder of Italian giants, A.S. Roma.
Oscar De La Hoya
De La Hoya has made a name for himself in the world of boxing. He was named Golden Boy after winning ten versions of the world championship across six different weight classes, beating men who were larger than him with his agility and smaller men with his power punches.
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However, when he lost to Manny Pacquiao in 2008, he decided that it was time for him to retire. But, even when he retired as a player, he focused on his Golden Boy Promotions company, which was originally created to promote his own fights, and has been involved in promoting some of the biggest matches in recent years. His net worth is now at $200 million.
John Madden
John is the real deal when it comes to the NFL. He played long before sports was funded with lots and lots of money. However, a tragic injury ended his career before he even really had a chance to prove his worth to everyone. But that did not stop him though. Because of his passion for the sport, he learned to coach and got his big break after the Oakland Raiders’ victory in Super Bowl X!.
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But it’s not his job as a coach that people got to learn of his name. He spent 30 years as the voice behind every sports major network. It was because of this that EA Sports approached him to license his name to promote their NFL games which was a whopping $150 million. His net worth now comes up to $200 million.
Jeff Gordon
Mr. NASCAR, as many would call him, has about $200 million to his name to date. He is considered a legend, having won all there is to win across 23 seasons of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. He has the most Cup wins than any other driver and has a NASCAR record of achieving at least one pole position in every season he drove in.
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He has retired and is now an executive at Hendrix Motorsports – the team he drove for his entire career. He also is one of the FOX NASCAR official announcers. One of his more notable achievements was when he was asked to design the perfect race track for the Canadian Motor Speedway.
Hakeem Olajuwon
Having built his own real estate empire after his retirement, Hakeem is worth about $200 million. He has broken so many records before and is named the only player in history to win the NBA MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP awards all inside the same season in the mid-1990s.
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He migrated to the United States from Nigeria to follow his dream. It was in 1996 when he joined the US team to compete in the Olympics where he won a gold medal. Sticking to his Muslim faith, he received a lot of praise when he was named NBA Player of the Month of February back in 1995 despite him going into fasting for Ramadan.
David Robinson
David Robinson, also known as “The Admiral,” has been hugely regarded as one of the greatest centers in all of NBA history. He was in the military prior to his basketball career and ran center for the San Antonio Spurs for 14 whole years.
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Since his official retirement, he has been focusing on growing the Admiral Capital Group that he established back in 2008. The company focuses on investing in ideas and business that will provide not only financial returns, but social ones as well. The company has a portfolio that is worth over $100 million which increased his net worth to $200 million to date.
Dave Whelan
Dave Whelan started playing professional soccer back in the 1950s but it was during the 1960 FA Cup Final that he famously broke his leg. The compensation he got back then, he used as capital to start a chain of supermarkets called “Whelan’s Discount Stores.” When the business started taking off, he retired from playing soccer indefinitely to focus on his brand.
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By the time the mid-1990s came, he was already the chairman of a very successful chain of sports stores in Britain. But his love for soccer still was there, he ended up purchasing the Wigan Athletic Football Club. He greatly invested in new players, better facilities and a new stadium which was rewarded when the club hit the English Premier League in 2005. His current net worth is at $210 million.
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
Dwayne is one of the many athletes that jumped ship from playing sports to diving into the world of Hollywood. He has a huge following on social media and is almost always in every action movie over the past five years. He has even developed and released his own line of premium tequila last year.
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He has come a long way from being a WWE westler – following the footsteps of his father – to a now social media and Hollywood celebrity that everyone seems to love. I mean, we cannot blame his fans because he’s one of the very few who are down-to-earth despite his success – as in $280 million in net worth.
George Foreman
Widely known as one of the world’s greatest boxers, George Foreman is almost like a household name. He went fist to first with Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali which was considered the most famous fight in the history of boxing. He retired some time in the 1980s but because of bad financial planning, he almost went bankrupt.
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He returned to the ring again shortly after and was named World Champion in 1994 at the age of 45. Later on, he acquired an endorsement deal for a new kind of grill which was named after him – The George Foreman Grill. The licensing to his name earned him 40% of each grill sold which got him making around $4.5 million every month in sales alone. His predicted net worth to date is now at $300 million.
Jack Nicklaus
Before Tiger Woods became really famous for the world’s greatest golfer, people seem to forget that Jack Niklaus had dominated that ring before. He was dubbed “The Golden Bear” because of his incessant wins in almost every championship there is in the golfing world.
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His current net worth is about $320 million and that is all thanks to his career. When he retired. He put up a course design company, Niklaus Design, and is believed to have designed and opened over 400 golf courses worldwide. He also had another company that sold golfing goods called Nicklaus Golf Equipment.
Kobe Bryant
Considered as one of NBA’s most iconic and most successful players, Kobe Bryant has been a godsend to the LA Lakers. He has played more seasons for the same team more than anyone else in all of basketball’s history. He is considered to be the second Michael Jordan in the field for his expertise.
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Bryant has become a huge celebrity, with aspiring basketball players and kids looking up to him. He has a ton of sponsorship and endorsement deals which has basically helped his income skyrocket to what his net worth is at now – $350 million. Before his passing, he teamed up with Jeff Stibel to launch a venture capital fund to bring in income for various sectors.
Alex Rodriguez
A-Rod to avid fans, he is thought to be the greatest baseball player since Babe Ruth with 25 grand slams to his record. Although, he did earn himself a nickname “Mr. Cooler” because of his habit of freezing up in clutch situations.
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Alex has definitely earned a hefty amount of money because of his success in the field. He is a 14-time All Star and world series winner with a total of 696 home runs recorded. Sponsors love him in and out of the field which has basically boosted his net worth to $350 million.
Shaquille O’Neal
O’Neal has made himself a name from the very first day he started playing professional basketball. He debuted with Orlando Magic and became the second player to win “Rookie of the Year” since Michael Jordan and make it to the All Star team all in the same season.
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He is pretty much well-known not only for his success as a basketball player, but also because he is one of the heaviest and the tallest ever to play the sport. He is all well-loved because of his down-to-earth personality and this in turn bode well for him because sponsorship and endorsement deals came flooding in. To date, he has about $400 million to his net worth.
LeBron James
This one is pretty much up there for debate as people are torn between him and Kobe Bryant. And it doesn’t help that both athletes go head to head with their achievements as well. Like Kobe, LeBron is one of NBA’s leading scorers, he is also a 14-time All Star, 3-time NBA champion and 4-time NBA MVP.
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To date, his net worth is around $400 million and that is continuing to grow because he still plays basketball and sponsorship deals are not going to end anytime soon. He especially got a big boost on to his net worth when Apple bought Dr. Dre’s “Beats” chain of headphones. He was a minor shareholder and so upon Apple’s purchase, he received about $30 million off of that sale.
David Beckham
Although David is not really up the top of soccer’s greatest players, he did make it as a household name because of his marriage to English singer and member of Spice Girls, Victoria Beckham. They were and are still considered one of Hollywood’s power couples.
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Though retired from the sport, Beckham still makes money out of his lifetime sponsorship deal with Adidas worth about $160 million. He also has many businesses on the side, including his other soccer ventures and his whiskey brand. His net worth is reportedly in the region of $450 million.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.
This man is notorious for his lavish lifestyle, people basically call him “Money.” And he has deep pockets to prove that, fortunately for him. He also doesn’t miss out on opportunities that make him richer than he already is. He earned roughly about $300 million from his fight with Conor McGregor back in 2017.
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People may shake heads at him for his over-the-top lavish lifestyle, but he didn’t get to where he is now without any talent. He was and is arguably the best boxer for a very long time and defeating Manny Pacquiao was evidence. He has a career record of 50-0, undefeated. And his net worth is up $560 million.
Tiger Woods
Currently, Woods has a net worth of $760 million, way more than what he originally bargained for. He is ranked as the world’s #1 pro golf player in all of history and has won about 14 major championships. So, it’s easy to say that success is definitely his middle name.
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He not only found money by playing pro golf, he also has a wide portfolio that generates him so much money, too. To start off, he’s so marketable that he signed countless endorsement deals with huge brands like Nike and American Express. He partnered with TAG Hueur and designed a golf proof watch and licensed his name to EA Sports for a series of video games, all of which sent his cash reserves skyrocketing.
Michael Jordan
Ah yes, the king of all kings in the world of basketball. Michael Jordan is and always will be the top on the list when someone mentions the thought of basketball. He is a sporting megastar and is a sports mogul with tons of sponsorships to his name.
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More notably, he worked with Nike in the mid-1980s to develop his own shoe line called the Air Jordan sneakers – still very much loved today. He also landed other deals with big brands namely McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Gatorade. The proceeds he got from these endorsement deals, he used to invest in sports. He is now part owner of the Charlotte Hornets and the Miami Marlins which has helped magnify his net worth to a whopping $1.5 billion to date. Now that’s money and legacy!