Kansas City Chiefs MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes is a very rich man. The 26-year-old Super Bowl winning quarterback has a very lucrative contract, several endorsements and investments that could make him the first NFL player to become a billionaire. How close is he to making this happen?
Patrick Mahomes will be the first NFL billionaire 👀
$503M in NFL money and several 3x business moves.
THREAD: Mahomes’ 4 Best Investments pic.twitter.com/nFrxJPwgoa
— Andrew Petcash (@AndrewPetcash) April 18, 2022
Michael Jordan became the world’s first billionaire athlete. It’s worth noting the distinction between earnings and net worth. Earnings reflect the money you make. Net worth reflects the value of all the assets and money you already have.
Several athletes have made over $1 billion in career earnings, including: Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Floyd Mayweather. But none of them have a net worth of $1 billion or more.
Mahomes made news in 2020 when he signed a 10-year contract extension worth up to $503 million. That’s a huge amount of money. But NFL contracts don’t operate in a vacuum and are not guaranteed. $141 million of it is guaranteed and if it isn’t restructured to meet salary cap guidelines, Mahomes will likely see $350 million to $400 million of that money.
But that’s earnings. Cash is like anything else, regardless of how much of it is earned. A portion of that has to go to whatever his living expenses are and whatever expenditures he might have.
Mahomes rakes in around another $22 million annually in endorsements from his sponsors.
Where he has a shot to earn billionaire status is with the investments he’s made at such a young age.
Mahomes purchased a 1% stake in Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals franchise. As of 2022, the Royals have a valuation of $1.11 billion. That’s $11,100,000. Franchise values continue to soar. By 2040 that could be worth double or more.
Mahomes also bought a stake in Major League Soccer’s Sporting KC franchise. They are worth about $550 million. While MLS franchise values are higher than they were when the league was created, they still trail behind football, basketball and baseball. It’s unclear how much Mahomes’ stake in KC is.
Hyperice, maker of performance recovery products, counts Mahomes as an ambassador and investor. He participated in a $48 million funding round in 2020. The holistic high-performance wellness brand is approaching a $1 billion valuation. Depending on his equity stake, this is also a lucrative investment play.
Mahomes also invested in Whoop, a wearable technology company, in 2020. At the time of the Series E investment, Whoop had a valuation of $1.2 billion. Now the company is valued at $3.6 billion.
The quarterback’s investment portfolio also includes Adidas, Whataburger, Biosteel, Buzzer, and Dapper Labs.
These are the types of investments that will ultimately generate the value Mahomes will need to become a billionaire. He’ll likely need to potentially look at some real estate holdings, and jumping in on some of these tech investments in the early seed or series A funding rounds to see a huge return on investment.
Becoming a billionaire isn’t easy, and you need to get really lucky as well. But at 26 with a lot of cash on hand he has the opportunity through smart investments, turning sponsorship opportunities into equity plays, to give luck a chance.
