How Pete Sampras Achieved a Net Worth of $150 Million

During the time that he played professional tennis, he was commonly known as Pistol Pete. If you’re not familiar with the game, his name is Pete Sampras and before he retired, he was considered to be among the very best professional tennis players that have ever existed. Since that time, he’s also done a number of things that people would consider great feats, most of them largely in the world of professional tennis. As a matter of fact, his net worth was recently listed at 150 million dollars. Imagine what it would be like to have that much money at your disposal. If you’re wondering how he accomplished it, keep reading.

History

The very idea that someone could have a net worth of 150 million dollars is enough to blow your mind, quite frankly. It’s hard to wrap your head around it and it’s even harder to grasp an understanding of how someone could potentially make that much money in an entire lifetime. It’s important to note here that Sampras is only 47 years old, and he’s already made far more money than most people could ever hope to make through an entire life of working around the clock. How has he done it? Most of it was money that he earned while he was playing professional tennis. Clearly, he achieved a great deal while he was playing. It would be virtually impossible to make anything close to that much money if it weren’t for the fact that he was a top player, not only of his time, but of any tennis player that has ever played at the professional level.

Did Sampras really make 150 million dollars by being a professional tennis player? The answer is both yes and no. If you’re looking for exact figures, he made a little more than 40 million dollars through his winnings that he would have achieved as a direct result of certain matches that he played in. The rest actually came as the result of various endorsement deals. This isn’t the least bit surprising, especially when you consider the fact that almost every successful celebrity or athlete has a number of endorsement deals going for them. While there seem to be more of these types of deals available today than there were in the past, they’ve always been popular and as a direct result, the most popular athletes have always been offered the highest paying deals. In Sampras’ case, he made approximately 100 million dollars from endorsement deals alone.

The Issues

You could easily say that Pete Sampras was among the best paid professional tennis players of his generation, and possibly of all time. The thing is, he didn’t stop there. Remember, he’s been retired for quite a few years now, playing his last match in 2012. Granted, he still does endorsement deals and he still makes a great deal of money from doing them but that almost 50 million dollars that he made from playing and winning individual matches is not generating any additional income any longer. As a result, he made the decision a number of years ago that he needed to do something to change that. That’s when he went into real estate. It’s worth noting here that he doesn’t exactly handle your run-of-the-mill properties, either. Instead, he deals with high dollar properties that belong to celebrities and that means that he stands to make a great deal of money from each and every one of them that he sells. Without a doubt, he’s become almost as good at selling real estate as he was at playing tennis. This continues to add to his net worth, which is exactly what he had in mind when he decided to do it.

Sampras has never really been one to rest on his laurels, nor has he ever been inclined to simply sit back and let the opportunities come to him. Quite the opposite is true, in fact. Typically, he decides what he wants and then he decides to find a way to go out and get it. That’s the way he approached playing the game of tennis and it’s the way he approaches his real estate and other entrepreneurial endeavors today. He’s done quite well in the world of real estate, selling a number of houses for A-list celebrities for an undisclosed amount. While he hasn’t necessarily made the amount of money that he stood to gain a publicly known figure, it is very clear that he’s made a great deal of money from each and every one of them. Apparently, he figured out quite quickly how to make the connections he needed to make in order to sell the property without it being on the market for months on end. This is something that even the most seasoned real estate agents sometimes struggle with. For him, it doesn’t seem to have been a major factor, at least not so far.

Final Thoughts

In short, Sampras uses the income that he generates from the real estate deals and other entrepreneurial ventures he’s involved in to continue to build his net worth and to give him an income to live off of without requiring him to dip into the money that he’s already made in the past. Remember, there were approximately 100 million dollars made during the time he played tennis due to his endorsement deals. Prior to that, he was able to live off of the money that he made from playing the game. Once he retired and that money dried up, he wasn’t at all keen on the idea of using the money he made from endorsement deals to fund his lifestyle from that point forward. Getting into real estate solved that problem because it actually allowed him to make a similar amount of money to what he was making when he played professional tennis. That, in turn, leaves the majority of the money that he has received from endorsement deals untouched.

When it’s all said and done, he has a lot of that money in savings and other portions of the money have been invested. Sampras is careful not to place all of his eggs in one basket, so to speak. He is constantly adding more money to his overall net worth. He’s already surpassed an amount that many people will never even see. Imagine how much additional money he stands to make in the future.