Becoming an athlete can prove to be a very demanding career choice. You often must sacrifice a lot in order to become properly trained. Athletes face insanely high levels of competition. However, many athletes are handsomely rewarded for their hard work if they manage to make it to top professional levels. In the super-celebrity professional league, things become amplified to the extreme. From the intense work load, the high competition levels which these athletes must constantly cope with, and also the rewards (and the ensuing fame). In this article, we examine the net worth of some of the best athletes out there to illustrate the best of the best such as How the Vince McMahon Net Worth and Other Successful Athletes Rank in the Forbes Celebrity Net Worth of 2014.
In today’s post, we will analyze the cases of 5 rich athletes who attained a sort of celebrity status. We will also pinpoint their career strategies or any other influential life changes that helped them reach this career level. This isn’t strictly a list of the top richest athletes in the world. Instead, this is our top 5 list of athletes with a financial performance which we find inspiring.
Michael Jordan
Michael Jorday stands as perhaps the best example of a top-earning athlete of all time. His celebrity status is sky high considering he is also the most famous basketball player of all times. Michael Jordan officially retired as an athlete a few years ago. However, he remained very active as an entrepreneur and spokesperson for the entire professional basketball industry. Michael Jordan’s net worth now sits at an impressive $1 billion despite the fact that he hasn’t performed as an athlete in well over a decade. Jordan continues to earn up to $100 million a year from his Nike and Jordan royalties alone. Jordan’s fame and cult icon status allowed him to associate his name with these two brands and sell them by the hundreds of thousands. To many less-successful athletes, Jordan’s career serves as a sterling example of what to do once you become known in a certain sport: appearing in commercials may just get you into the Forbes Celebrity net worth list.
Vince McMahon
Vince McMahon is an almost equally famous name compared to Jordan. He is not a newcomer to the professional sports business either. McMahon’s total earnings secured him a number 3 position in a forbes list of athlete with the highest net worth. Originally, the Vince McMahon net worth sat at $1.2 billion at the beginning of 2014. Consequently, this figure dropped to only $750 million in May 2014 due to a sudden decrease in the value of WWE shares. Still, this decreased figure is not too shabby a figure to be holding onto. Vince McMahon pretty much founded and ran the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) alongside his wife. His activities as a promoter and his serving as a host to major sports events greatly contributed to figure where the Vince McMahon net worth stands today.
Floyd Mayweather
Unlike the first two entries on our list, Floyd Mayweather, the boxing superstar, remains very active and is currently in the prime of his career. The Floyd Mayweather net worth, calculated by Forbes in November 2014, currently sits at an impressive $295 million. Considering that a young boxer in his thirties earned all of this is all the more impressive. In Mayweather’s case, he earned these high figures from a truly spectacular career performance since the very beginning of his boxing days. Floyd Mayweather proceeded to win six boxing championships in five different weight classes. Such an achievement stands alone without precedent in all boxing history.
Lebron James
Lebron marks yet another professional basketball player on our list. Lebron James holds a net worth of $270 million even though he is still only 29 years old. He will become 30 as of December 2014. In his case, James owes just as much of his career success to his performances as he does to his skill and talent at capitalizing his image on the big screen. Lebron works as a screenwriter, television producer, and voice actor in a wide range of commercials and TV appearances. Ongoing contracts with Nike, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and more contribute yearly to further improving the impressive Lebron James net worth.
Magic Johnson
Magic Johnson serves as yet another athlete on our list who turned his physical performance into a starting point of a highly lucrative career. Some analysts rank Johnson just below Michael Jordan in terms of fame. However, Johnson is definitely closing in on Jordan as far as finances are concerned. Forbes currently estimates Magic Johnson net worth at $500 million. In his case, the secret to such great success definitely lies in his skills for business which he developed later in life. Although his contracting HIV in 1991 cut his sports career short, Mr. Johnson continues to enjoy a legendary status among all basketball fans. He remained active as a successful entrepreneur, developing and owning several businesses. Johnson also invests into external companies as well (such as the Starbucks chain).
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