The first active NBA player to become a billionaire is LeBron James, the basketball icon with four NBA titles, three Olympic medals, and eighteen NBA All-Star appearances under his resume.
According to a Forbes article published on Thursday, James has officially become a billionaire after an exceptionally successful year in which he made just over $121 million. The 37-year-old player’s moniker, King James, is all the more appropriate in light of the breakthrough.
According to a previous Forbes article, Michael Jordan—often hailed as the best player to ever play basketball—is the wealthiest athlete of all time. However, he didn’t surpass a billion dollars until he had left the NBA. Due to his investments in the Charlotte Hornets basketball club and his endorsement deals with Nike, Gatorade, and Haines, Jordan’s net worth has decreased to $1.7 billion as of right now, from $2.1 billion in 2020.
James has successfully optimized his firm, generating over $1.2 billion in pretax profits. As the highest-paid active player in the NBA, he has demanded more than $385 million in pay from the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat, and Los Angeles Lakers. He has earned over $900 million through sponsorship deals and other commercial endeavors while he is not on the court.
James moved twelve times in three years after being born to a poor sixteen-year-old single mother in Akron, Ohio. Before he became the most anticipated high school basketball prospect of all time, he lived with a variety of family members, acquaintances, neighbors, and his peewee football coach. At the age of 18, he signed his first contract with Nike in 2003, notably turning down offers from Adidas and Reebok in favor of what he believed to be a stronger long-term partner. Well done. He signed a lifetime contract for tens of millions of dollars a year with Nike in late 2015, capping almost a decade of achievement. Thanks to Nike and endorsement agreements with companies like AT&T, PepsiCo, and Walmart, he was the second-highest paying athlete in the world during the last year.
