With American football at 9th place in the ranking of the most popular sports in the world with more than 400 million fans, it should see massive salaries for athletes. Some of the top players in the NFL league can earn up to $45 million a year and with an average career span of 3-4 years, their net worth is skyrocketing.
SummaryDaniel WilcoxJake Locker and Michael KoenenDrew BreesFrostee RuckerJon VilmaBut what do they do with all the money?
Obviously, they lead a luxurious life by buying real estate, super luxury cars, designer clothes, investing, and some brave players start their own business. As the average career length is short, they have to think about their future income because a luxurious life can be expensive and they will end up burning their money before retirement.
In today's article, we'll spotlight some of the NFL stars who started their own businesses and transitioned from athletes to entrepreneurs.
Here we have an NFL player who had an impressive eight-year big league career. He won the Superbowl and if injuries hadn't stopped him, this tight end could still have led the offensive lines of the best teams in the NFL (Click here for more).
He was forced to retire in the 2008 season. Daniel played for some of the biggest teams in the league such as the New York Jets, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he finished his career playing for the Baltimore Ravens.
After retiring from professional sports, he decided to start his Atlanta-based residential and commercial renovation business called Mr. 83 Degreez Renovations and Designs. Yes, the name 83 comes from the number he wore on his jersey.
Later, he and his wife started their second business – an event planning and design company called Strictly Pish Designs, which was very successful.
Jake Locker is another retired NFL player who quickly found a way to invest his money in a business. He began his football journey playing for the University of Washington, after being drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the eighth draft of 2011.
On the other hand, we have Michael Koenen who is also retired from professional football and he played for the Atlanta Falcons most of his career.
They both teamed up and decided to buy a fitness center in Washington, renaming it Locker Room. They plan to expand to other states as they are doing well.
Drew Brees is one of the NFL players with the longest career in professional sports. He managed to play 5 seasons for the San Diego Chargers after being drafted in 2001 and moved to the New Orleans Saints where he decided to retire this year.
According to online magazines, throughout his career in the NFL, he managed to accumulate more than $160 million, which is a big amount of money that you can start any type of business you like. .
After some thought, he decided to start a clothing business with his wife Brittany called Neuf Marque . It is an interesting business idea and certainly a profitable business since the margins in this industry are quite high.
Frostee Rucker is a former American football player, the first line of defense for many teams throughout his career. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the third round of the 2006 NFL Draft where he played five seasons after moving to the Cleveland Browns.
His journey with the new team didn't last long as he moved to the Arizona Cardinals after one season and retired to the Oakland Raiders.
At the height of his career, he decided to become an entrepreneur by buying two franchises of orange leaf frozen yogurt that did not have much success. After that, he wanted to open a McDonald's only for breakfast and when that didn't work out, he started investing in fro-yo.
Here we have another former NFL star who started his career playing college football at the University of Miami and won the championship with the team. After that, he was picked in the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft, and his life has changed ever since.
He managed to rack up over $11 million in salaries alone, which led him to the idea of starting a business.
He started as an entrepreneur by building his own bar in Miami, and he also developed a bar-focused mobile app after noticing people fiddle with their phones when they go out for a drink. BarEye is a mobile app that lets people order drinks, skip lines, and avoid the hassle of waiting to open a tab.
