How This Retired NBA Player Invested His Way To A Net Worth Of $600 Million: Hint, It's Not Magic Johnson, Shaq, or Jordan

If you look at a list of the richest former NBA players, you will find one name much less recognizable than LeBron James, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan: Junior Bridgeman. Bridgeman never made an all-star team or was paid more than $350,000 annually. Yet he invested his way to an estimated $600 million net worth. Benzinga looks at how he did it. 

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Ulysses Lee Bridgeman (aka Junior) was born and raised in East Chicago, Indiana, where he had a standout career playing for the Washington High School basketball team. Bridgeman's high school hoops exploits earned him a scholarship to the University of Louisville. He would grow under the tutelage of legendary coach Denny Crum from 1972-1975 before being selected by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1975 draft.

The Lakers quickly traded Bridgeman and several other players to the Milwaukee Bucks for future hall-of-fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bridgeman would play with Milwaukee for the next ten years, averaging 13.5 points per game. He was then traded to the Los Angeles Clippers, where he played for two more years before retiring in 1987.

For many NBA players, retirement is where their financial troubles begin. A now infamous Sports Illustrated article notes almost 60% of NBA players will have extreme financial difficulties (e.g., bankruptcy) after retirement. The risk is especially high for players who played in Bridgeman's era. His maximum annual salary of $350,000 is barely half today's $1.16 million league minimum (according to Statista). He made his first post-retirement investment by purchasing a Wendy's WEN  franchise.

At the time, Wendy's was an upstart hamburger franchise and perhaps a riskier bet than buying into a McDonald's or a Burger King. However, that likely also allowed Bridgeman to acquire his first restaurant for a lower franchise fee than more established operations would charge. Bridgeman's first location was successful enough to make him a multimillionaire. Since then, Wendy's has become a powerhouse in the fast-food hamburger game with locations nationwide.

Bridgeman would ride that wave and grow with Wendy's until he had a full-fledged restaurant empire. He opened location after location and even branched out into other franchises by investing in a then-little-known casual dining chain called Chili's. By the time he'd stopped acquiring new locations, Bridgeman was a bona fide restaurant mogul who owned over 250 Wendy's and another 116 Chili's restaurants nationwide under his company, Bridgeman Foods.

Bridgeman would eventually sell all his restaurants in 2016, which likely netted him hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. While most people would have been satisfied to walk away from the table at that point, Bridgeman wasn't. He branched out into new industries and even bought a Coca-Cola bottling plant. Bridgeman then founded a media company, Bridgeman Sports and Media.

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In keeping with his strategy of buying undervalued assets, Bridgeman Sports and Media purchased Ebony and Jet Magazines in 2020. Despite both publications having a strong following in the African American community, they were bankrupt when Bridgeman called. This allowed him to close the deal for only $14 million (according to Forbes Magazine). Both magazines have since reinvented themselves as digital publications under the direction of Bridgeman's daughter, Eden.

Today, Bridgeman's portfolio is incredibly diverse and includes real estate, his Coca-Cola bottling plants, and burgeoning media interests. His current net worth is estimated at roughly $600 million. Bridgeman has done an outstanding job of growing wealth, especially considering that his estimated NBA career earnings were only $4,000,000. After taxes and agent fees, Bridgeman probably netted less than half that, and not in one lump sum.

Bridgeman has grown roughly $2,000,000 worth of net earnings into a $600 million portfolio since 1987. He certainly outperformed all but a few fund managers. It's worth noting that Bridgeman's success isn't an accident. He spent his NBA offseasons working at Wendy's to learn its operations before investing. Bridgeman's story is a textbook example of the potential benefits of early preparation and wise investing. 

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