Magic Johnson becomes fourth athlete billionaire: Lakers icon joins Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Tiger Woods

Magic Johnson is formally a billionaire, according to Forbes. This approach the Lakers legend will likely be simply the fourth athlete to succeed in this benchmark, becoming a member of Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Tiger Woods.

Forbes now estimates Johnson’s internet price to be $1.2 billion. After turning into the primary general pick out within the 1979 NBA Draft out of Michigan State, Johnson went directly to have some of the iconic careers in NBA historical past. 

Johnson used to be the NBA’s assists chief 4 instances and steals chief two times. His many accomplishments come with 5 NBA championships and 12 All-Star appearances. 

However, Johnson earned maximum of cash after he used to be executed taking part in. In reality, Forbes studies he made $40 million from his NBA occupation, and he earned the remaining via being a savvy trade guy who invests in a couple of other spaces. 

Johnson has possession stakes in 3 Los Angeles-based sports activities groups, together with the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers and MLS’ LAFC. He additionally invested within the NFL’s Commanders previous this 12 months. Johnson’s non-sports investments come with Starbucks, Burger King, 24 Hour Fitness and the lifestyles insurance coverage corporate EquiTrust.

Interestingly sufficient, Johnson in fact had an opportunity to develop into a billionaire quicker as Converse, Adidas and Nike approached him with shoe deal provides when he used to be coming into the NBA.

Nike allegedly presented Johnson $1 for each and every shoe they offered, in addition to 100,000 stocks in shares at $0.18 according to proportion. But at the moment, Nike used to be nonetheless a brand new corporate and Johnson did not know a lot about making an investment. He took a handle Converse, which presented him $100,000 a 12 months, as a substitute.

“My family didn’t come from money, that’s one thing that hurt us [sometimes]. When you don’t come from money, you don’t know. I didn’t even know what stocks [were] at that time,” Johnson said on the “All The Smoke” podcast previous this 12 months. “So I passed on the stocks. Can you imagine? 45 years, $5 billion that stock would have been worth today.”

But even though he ignored out on that deal, Johnson has nonetheless develop into one of the vital elite athletes who’ve taken their monetary achievements to new heights.