How Alex Rodriguez Achieved a Net Worth of $300 Million

Alex Rodriguez was a highly coveted baseball prospect when he was just 17 years old and literally has made hundreds of millions of dollars in his Major League Baseball career. Currently 43 years old and retired from baseball, he has amassed an estimated net worth of more than $300 million, a sizable chunk of that from his baseball playing career. But as we will see, Rodriguez has not simply squirreled his money away in a bank but decided to branch out to other types of investment to diversify his wealth.

How Major League Baseball Contributed To His Wealth

Starting with the Seattle Mariners, he signed a deal that would bring him $1.13 million a year. However, though this was great money for a young baseball player, he would never see the World Series as a player – the goal of every professional player. His 7 years with Seattle would bring in just over $12 million before deciding to move on.

The next stop was Texas to play for the Rangers. He would be only 25 years old when negotiating his new contract in 2001, landing a historic $252 million over 10 years that was at the time believed to be overpaying the young talent. Rodriguez would prove the critics wrong, as he won the Most Valuable Player award just two years later.

But Rodriguez’s contract appears to have been too heavy for the Rangers to manage, and without making any significant progress towards the World Series, he was traded to the New York Yankees. As we will see later, the Rangers did not get out of his deal completely scot-free, but what Rodriguez was able to do was parlay another huge contract with the Yankees in 2007. Between 2004 and 2007, Rodriguez was paid the amount of his Kansas City contract – about $25 million a year.

The Yankees then negotiated a new contract with him for an eye-popping $275 million over 10 years, surpassing his previous deal. But this deal has a proven history of his talent behind it, as he won the AL MVP award in 2005 and 2007. It helps to be on a winning team to get the MVP recognition from sportswriters.

A bump in his career road occurred when he was found guilty of doping in the Biogenesis Scandal, with the result of being suspended for an entire season – 162 games – and thus forfeiting all of his earnings for that year. That year was 2014, and hit him when his career was just beginning to peak. Fans, who these days largely determine the value of any sports professional, had lost a significant amount of respect for Rodriguez and this would later prove to hit him in the endorsement pocketbook.

All totaled, the New York Yankee would retire with making about $436.6 million during his playing days in Major League Baseball. As part of his future earnings, Rodriguez can count on receiving $26 million from the Texas Rangers in deferred payments until 2025, which will add to his final total.

While he failed to capitalize on his earning through endorsing a number of products and services as many other professional athletes do, he did manage to pick up about $35 million selling memorabilia and acquiring sponsorship deals with companies such as Nike, Louisville Slugger, Rawlings, Pepsi, Giorgio Armani, and Radio Shack. There is little doubt that Rodriguez’s Biogenesis Scandal hurt his long term potential for endorsement deals, but he would find other avenues of generating revenue.

Alex Rodriguez’s Investments

One of his avenues was to open a Mercedes-Benz dealership in the city of League City, Texas where it has been moderately successful. He also is an investor in the esports team of NRG Esports which has had mixed results. On a more personal level, Rodriguez is reported to be a serious collector of art as well as a buyer, though the actual value of his collection remains a mystery.

Given the wide variety of investments and his virtually guaranteed millions from the Texas Rangers, expect his total net worth to continue to rise over the next five years. He has led the life of a single man since his divorce to his first wife in 2008, and while being seen with a number of female celebrities such as Madonna and Jennifer Lopez, his lifestyle remains that of a single man who at 43 continues to enjoy his wealth and success. Despite the rumors, there are no current plans for him to enter into a long term, committed situation.