Everyone believes that cash is king. Or rather, the King is cash in this case. Without a doubt, Lebron James is one of the highest-earning players in NBA history. Currently, he's sitting pretty with a net worth of $480 million.
Therefore, it comes at no surprise that James comes in at No. 9 in Forbes' Celebrity 100 for 2020, No. 5 in the World's Highest-Paid Athletes for 2020 and No. 39 in America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40, circa 2016.
But not only does James have a fat salary, he also rakes in cash from endorsements and his businesses, too. While it's easy to add everything up and marvel at the figures right now, let's also take a look into the future and speculate how much he'll be worth when he chooses to retire from the NBA.
Salary
Throughout his entire NBA career, he has been paid a total of $300 million. When James joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018 under a four-year, $153 million contract, this assured him an additional $38 million per year.
Endorsements
With a plethora of endorsements from McDonalds, Microsoft, State Farm, Beats by Dre, Coca-Cola, Dunkin-Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Samsung, Nike and more, James makes around $55 million per year.
Businesses
James has his own production company (SpringHill Entertainment), media company (Uninterrupted), and pizza franchise (Blaze Pizza) that currently gives him a total of $60 million in earnings per year.
Adding It All Up
James' current net worth is $480 million, with a total annual income of around $153 million.
Realistic Projection
All things considered, a realistic projection is that Janes' income will remain relatively stable for a set period of time. Factors such as decision-making, inflation, pay cuts and others, should be considered too. But for the sake of curiosity, here is the computation:
Now at age 35, and a conservative estimate of a retirement age of 40, James should have a net worth of $1.245 billion by then.
All in all, the King is cash. Even if the data skews high or low, or he invests more aggressively or he decides to splurge on his spending, there's no arguing that LeBron James is one of the most wealthy of the NBA's prominent players and should continue to earn big money even after he retires from basketball.
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