Kobe Bryant Net Worth

Kobe Bryant’s net worth is $319 million. Our Kobe Bryant net worth figures come from digging into the star’s salary and contracts and endorsement deals. We also folded estimates for taxes, expenses and investments into our Kobe Bryant net worth calculations.

By our estimates, Kobe Bryant’s net worth includes a total of $298 million in salary since the Charlotte Hornets chose him as a first round draft pick in 1996. Since that time, the shooting guard has also piled away an estimated $352 million in endorsements and $26 million in investments. $260 million in taxes and another $97 million in expenses have subtracted from Kobe Bryant’s net worth. The star’s 2012 divorce that never happened would have sucked away another $75 million from Bryant’s net worth.

Kobe Bryant Net Worth Facts

Kobe Bryant Net Worth Comparisons

Compared to Kobe Bryant’s net worth of $319 million, LeBron James net worth of $210 million is 1.5 times smaller. Kobe Bryant’s net worth is 2.3 times larger than Tom Brady’s net worth of $138 million. Beyonce’s net worth of $372 million is 1.2 times larger than Kobe Bryant’s net worth. Kobe Bryant’s net worth is 100 times larger than Barack Obama’s net worth of $3.2 million and 4,691 times larger than the typical American’s net worth of $68,000. Finally, Bill Gates’ net worth of $80 billion is 250 times larger than Kobe Bryant’s net worth.

Salary and Kobe Bryant’s Net Worth

The most exact portion of our Kobe Bryant net worth calculations is his salary. That’s because the salaries of NBA players are released to the public. In 1996 when the Charlotte Hornets signed Bryant as a first round draft pick, the star earned $1 million. Bryant continued to add about $1 million a year to his net worth until the 1999-2000 season, when he earned $9 million. Since that time, Kobe Bryant’s salary has continued to grow by about a million or two a year.

Endorsements and Kobe Bryant Net Worth

Endorsements are a slightly tougher part of our Kobe Bryant net worth calculations. We do know Bryant signed major endorsement deals with McDonald’s, Sprite, Nike, Spalding and Upper Deck, to name a few. What we don’t know is the exact amounts the star added to his net worth from those deals. Endorsement deals are generally kept private unless a star decides to share the information. Since some sports figures do share details about endorsements, we can make educated guesses about the amounts they contribute to Kobe Bryant’s net worth. Industry estimates also give us a leg up in figuring endorsements.

Bryant is believed to be one of the top two players in the NBA for endorsement dollars. We can estimate that with Bryant’s huge endorsement deals, he makes about 18% more per year for endorsement deals than from his salary. Figuring that, we came up with an average of $19.5 million a year in endorsement dollars.

While the figures below are only estimates, they show a reasonable guess at how endorsements have added to Kobe Bryant’s net worth.

Taxes and Kobe Bryant Net Worth

We can reasonably estimate how much of Kobe Bryant’s net worth has gone toward taxes in the years since 1996. We know Bryant is in a 39.6% federal tax bracket and that he likely paid at least 5% more in state taxes. Based on those numbers, we figure the star has paid a total of $260 million in taxes over his career. That’s an average of $14 million per year.

Expenses and Kobe Bryant Net Worth

We figured that between his sports agent, marketing agent and other expenses, Bryant shells out about 15% of what he earns each year to cover expenses. That would mean total expenses of $97 million have subtracted from Kobe Bryant’s net worth. That’s an average of $5 million per year.

Kobe Bryant’s Net Worth and Investments

While we don’t really know that Bryant has invested anything at all, it makes sense he would have done something with his money after expenses and taxes were taken care of. If the star invested the remainder of what he made at a modest rate of 6%, he would have pulled in about $26 million from investments in the years since 1996. If that seems low, it’s because two major stock market corrections would have knocked Kobe Bryant’s net worth down by roughly 40%. The financial crisis in 2001 and the 2008 crisis both would have took a chunk out of Kobe Bryant’s net worth. We estimate the star lost $9 million in the first crash and $56 million in the second. That would still put Bryant ahead to the tune of $1.5 million a year from investment income.

Divorce and Kobe Bryant’s Net Worth

Without taxes and expenses, Kobe Bryant’s net worth would have been about $667 million dollars. Another setback nearly knocked the famous players wealth down several pegs. In 2012, Bryant nearly entered into a $75 million dollar divorce settlement with his wife Vanessa. The couple called off the divorce a year later. Had they gone through with it, Kobe Bryant’s net worth would have sunk to an estimated $234 million by 2015.

Kobe Bryant’s Net Worth: Putting it All Together

The table below shows how we estimated Kobe Bryant’s net worth. We started with hard salary data from Bryant’s contracts, then added estimates for endorsements at about 118% of salary. We deducted 40% for taxes and 15% for expenses. We also added 6% for investments, deducting 40% for each of the 2001 and 2008 financial crises. Our final Kobe Bryant net worth number of $319 million is only an estimate, but it’s a fairly educated one.

Kobe Bryant Net Worth Calculations

Sources:

Spotrac.com

The Huffington Post