This is the first time a (former) professional athlete has been on the 400 list.
Michael Jordan, (arguably) the greatest basketball player of all time, has entered the annual ranking of the richest people in the United States Forbes 400to. This year, $2.9 billion entered the list,
The fact that he sold a majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets NBA team at the beginning of the year played a big role in this. He made a huge profit on it, as the value of the Hornets is currently estimated at about 3 billion dollars, and he bought it in 2010 for only 275 million. Meanwhile, Gatorade and Nike advertising contracts also bring him good money, and he also has a NASCAR team, so he’s never bored.
Speaking to Forbes magazine, American businessman Ted Leonsis rightly said that Jordan
“He is one of the few people who has hit the ground running three times, while most entrepreneurs only manage to do it once.”
There are a fair number of athletes who make a lot of money, and even some who make it big as investors after (and perhaps during) their careers, but even relatively few enter the billionaire club. Jordan was first in 2014 – then LeBron James and Tiger Woods followed, but they remain out of the company of the fattest Americans at the moment.
