NFL Stars Who Started Their Own Businesses

With American Football coming at 9th place at the most popular sports in the world leaderboard with more than 400 million fans, it is expected to see some massive salaries for the athletes. Some of the top players in the NFL league can earn up to $45 million per year and with an average career length of 3-4 years, their net worth is climbing high.

But what do they do with all the money?

Obviously, they enjoy a luxurious life buying real estate, fancy super-cars, designer clothes, investing, and some brave players start their own businesses. Since the average career length is short, they need to think about their future income since a luxurious life can be costly and they will end up burning their cash before retirement. 

In today’s article, we will highlight some of the NFL stars who started their own business and turned from athletes to entrepreneurs.

Daniel Wilcox

Here we have an NFL player that had an impressive eight-year career playing in the big league. He won the Superbowl and if injuries hadn’t stopped him this tight end could have still be leading the offensive lines of the best teams in NFL (click here to find out more). 

He was forced to retire in the 2008 season. Daniel has 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 his retirement from professional sports, he decided to launch his Atlanta-based residential and commercial remodeling 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 – event planning and design company called Strictly Pish Designs which became very successful.

Jake Locker and Michael Koenen

Jake Locker is another retired NFL player who quickly found a way to invest his money into a business. He started his football journey playing for the University of Washington, after being drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the eighth overall 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 partnered together and decided to purchase a fitness center in Washington rebranding it into the Locker Room. They plan to increase their business to other states since it performs well.

Drew Brees

Drew Brees is one of the players in the NFL league 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 New Orleans Saints where he decided to retire this year. 

According to online magazines, throughout his NFL journey, he managed to accumulate over $160 million, which is a hefty sum of money that allows you to start any kind of business you like.

After some brainstorming, he decided to launch a clothing company with his wife Brittany called Nine Brand. It is an interesting business idea and definitely a profitable company since the margins in this industry are pretty high.

Frostee Rucker

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 switching to the Cleveland Browns. 

His journey in the new team didn’t last long since he mo7ved to Arizona Cardinals after one season, and retired in Oakland Raiders. 

During the peak of his career, he decided to become an entrepreneur by buying two orange leaf Frozen Yogurt franchises which didn’t result in much success. After that, he wanted to open a breakfast-only McDonald’s and since that didn’t work out, he started investing in fro-yo. 

Jon Vilma

Here we have another former NFL star that started his career playing college football at the University of Miami and won the championship with the team. After that, he was picked on the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft, and his life has changed ever since.

He managed to accumulate more than $11 million only in salaries, 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 that people fiddle with their phones when they are out for a drink. BarEye is a mobile app that allows people to order drinks, skip lines, and avoid the annoyance of waiting to open a tab.