With playing salaries and signing bonuses, endorsements, appearances and multiple business ventures, it’s no surprise that the world’s richest sportsman has a net worth of $3 billion (Rs 2,48,63 crore).
Despite the fandom over various sports leagues — the FIFA World Cup, Cricket World Cup, Formula 1 or FIBA Basketball World Cup — it’s still difficult to imagine a professional sportsman entering the billionaires club.
Given football (or soccer, depending on the part of the world you’re in) being deemed the most popular sport in the world, you would expect the world’s richest sportsman to be a football player. However, the current state of the world’s richest footballers — Lionel Messi with a net worth of approximately $650 million (Rs 5387 crore), according to CelebrityNetWorth, Cristiano Ronaldo, at $600 million (Rs 4972 crore) and Neymar with $200 million (1657 crore) don’t hold the title.
It isn’t even basketball legend LeBron James, with a net worth of $600 million (Rs 4972 crore) and golfing champion Tiger Woods, at $800 million (Rs 6630 crore). Here’s who it really is.
Know the world’s richest sportsman and it’s not Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Tiger Woods
The world’s richest sportsman is none other than Michael Jordan. The former Chicago Bulls player, who dominated the basketball courts for over 15 NBA seasons, has amassed a net worth of $3 billion (Rs 2,48,63 crore), earning him a spot on “The Forbes 400”. With this, the 60-year-old became the first professional athlete to rank among America’s wealthiest individuals, according to Forbes.
Other than earning a staggering $94 million in salary and signing bonuses, which made him the league’s highest-paid player in 1997 and 1998, Jordan didn’t wait until his peak had passed before making some smart business investments. His endorsement of popular brands like McDonald’s, Gatorade, Hanes and Nike over the years earned him an estimated $2.4 billion (pre-tax), which included a yearly royalty check of approximately $260 million from Nike, Forbes reports. Jordan’s association with Nike is legendary; the first pair of Air Jordans (which were produced for the basketball icon during his time with the Chicago Bulls on 17 November 1984), was released to the public on 1 April 1985.
However, it was in August 2023 when Jordan bagged the title of the world’s richest sportsman by selling a majority of his stake in the Charlotte Hornets , the 27th most valuable franchise in the NBA. The deal went down in NBA history for having the second-highest sale price ever, with the valuation standing at a whopping $3 billion. According to Forbes, Jordan sold his stake at 17 times the value he had purchased it for in 2010.
Jordan became the first billionaire player in NBA history in 2014, and two years later, former US President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Before this, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.
