10 Pro Athletes Who Made A Fortune After Retiring From Their Sport

Most professional athletes make enough money to live very comfortably during their career, and there are many people who play a sport for a living who should be theoretically set for life by the time they retire based on how much they got paid.

The average professional athlete has plenty of years ahead of them when they decide to retire, and while there are some lucky superstars that don’t have to worry about working another day in their life, most of them will end up pivoting to a new career.

There aren’t many instances where the path they take ends up being more lucrative than the life they left behind, but there are plenty of notable exceptions thanks to some people who ended up making a fortune thanks to the choices they made in the wake of their playing days.

George Foreman

George Foreman initially made a name for himself as a heavyweight boxer who boasted a 76-5 record during a professional career that spanned 30 years and included two wins over Joe Frazier and a loss to Muhammad Ali that sullied the 40-0 record he had heading into the bout.

He did pretty well for himself in the ring and earned an estimated $75 million during his career. However, most people who weren’t alive during his prime know him best as the man behind the lean, mean, fat-reducing machine that is the George Forman Grill.

The device took the world by storm after he started plugging it in 1994, and he said he was making $8 million a month at the peak of its popularity and raked in “much more” than the $200 million some sources said he’d earned from it (it’s worth noting he wasn’t technically retired when he first started pitching the grill, but he was firmly in the twilight of his career).

Michael Strahan

Michael Strahan is one of the many pro athletes who decided to pivot to broadcasting after retirement, although the path he took sets him apart from the rest of the pack.

The man who made more than $75 million during the 15 seasons he spent with the Giants has been contributing to Fox’s NFL coverage since 2008, but he eventually broadened his horizons by spending four years alongside Kelly Ripa as the co-host of Live! with Kelly and Michael while also joining Good Morning America.

Unlike the NFL, the details of his contract aren’t public, but he was reportedly raking in more than $20 million a year thanks to his work on television at one point.

Roger Staubach

Roger Staubach was a phenomenal QB for the Cowboys who posted an 89-29 record as a starter during the 11 seasons he played in Dallas, but the man who won two Super Bowls was only paid around $500,000 total during his time with the team.

However, he’d already started working on a backup plan before he retired by launching a real estate firm he creatively dubbed  The Staubach Company, which was already a very lucrative venture before he sold it for a staggering $613 million in 2008.

Steve Young

Steve Young received some advice from Staubach on life after football, who told him, “‘When you retire, run. Never look back.”

He didn’t necessarily follow it when you consider the 49ers QB who made $50 million during his time in the NFL when you consider he spent around two decades covering the league for ESPN, but the gig was far from his primary focus.

Young, who got a law degree from BYU in 1994, eventually turned his attention to private equity by co-founding Huntsman Gay Global Capital.

It’s not entirely clear how much money he’s made, but the firm oversees four funds that compromise a war chest that’s collectively worth more than $7 billion.

Young has also said he would have quit his $2 million-a-year job at ESPN if his partners hadn’t asked him to stick with it for publicity purposes, so it’s safe to assume he’s making some serious bank.

Junior Bridgeman

Ulysses”Junior” Bridgeman had a respectable NBA career that saw him play 12 seasons between the Bucks and the Clippers while averaging 13.6 points in the 849 games where he usually came off the bench.

He made around $3 million thanks to basketball, which pales in comparison to the $1.4 billion he was reportedly worth after pivoting to a career as an entrepreneur who initially made a fortune by operating more than 100 Wendy’s and Chili’s franchises.

He eventually sold that stake before rebounding by landing a contract as a bottler for Coca-Cola and purchased a 10% stake in the Bucks in 2024 before passing away this week at the age of 71.

Tim Horton

As was the case with Foreman, this is another situation where an athlete’s career ended up being overshadowed by another accomplishment—and another where they weren’t technically retired when it took off (I apologize for deviating from the theme once again).

Tim Horton was a wildly talented NHL defenseman and Hall of Famer who spent 24 seasons in the league (mostly with the Maple Leafs) before he died in a car crash in 1974 at the age of 44 with alcohol and drugs in his system.

His death occurred a decade after he lent his name to a donut shop he opened in Ontario before it quickly grew into a franchise that transformed into the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin’.

Horton may have died before truly reaping the benefits of the chain that now boasts more than 5,700 locations (there were only 40 when he passed away), but he almost certainly ended up making more from them than the approximately $850,000 he earned playing in the NHL.

Magic Johnson

Magic Johnson did pretty well for himself in the NBA during a career where he was one of the best players in the league as a member of the Lakers team that won five championships during the 13 seasons he played.

He’d already started preparing for life after basketball before he retired for the first time in the wake of his HIV diagnosis, and he eventually became a serial entrepreneur who oversees Magic Johnson Enterprises, a sizeable conglomerate with a focus on the entertainment industry worth an estimated $700 million.

He also made out like a bandit after convincing former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to let him open up 125 stores in urban areas he felt were being overlooked and reaps the benefits of having an ownership stake in terms including the Lakers, Dodgers, Sparks, and Commanders.

Arnold Palmer

Arnold Palmer is one of the most legendary golfers of all time but made less than $5 million in earnings during the time he spent on the PGA Tour and its senior circuit.

However, he was also very aware of the amount of money he could make off of the course by leveraging his fame and did exactly that by inking lucrative endorsement deals with major brands including Cadillac, Rolex, and Arizona (which sells the only “official” Arnold Palmer drink comprised of iced tea and lemonade).

Palmer made hundreds of millions of dollars as a result while supplementing those deals with revenue from his golf course design business and died a very rich man when he passed away in 2016 at the age of 87.

Jack Nicklaus

Jack Nicklaus may not have been able to take advantage of a popular drink named after him, but the man who made $5.7 million playing professional golf also earned significantly more off of the links.

Legendary course architect Pete Dye tapped Nicklaus to consult on a project in the 1960s and eventually took him under his wing before his disciple struck out on his own, and the company he founded has designed hundreds of highly esteemed tracks around the world.

Ion Tiriac

I’d be shocked if many people reading this are familiar with  Ion Tiriac, a native of Romania best known for his career as a pro tennis player but who was also a member of the hockey team the country sent to the  1964 Winter Olympics.

Tiriac eventually partnered with a Romanian businessman he met in Germany, and the two men took full advantage of the opportunities in their homeland in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union by founding the country’s first private bank.

He was able to leverage that venture into others involving real estate, private jets, insurance, and automobile sales en route to achieve the billionaire status he currently boasts.