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Shaquille O'Neal's business prowess has seen his name become synonymous with success, and his career-trajectory can, more often than not, be seen as something current NBA players can aspire for.
As an NBA player, Shaquille O'Neal was a four-time champion, three-time finals MVP, and 2000 MVP. He had 15 All-Star selections and 14 All-NBA selections. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.
The most dominant player to ever step foot on a basketball court, O'Neal has been just as aggressive off the court as he was on it. His diverse investments, his charitable proceeds, and all-around personality have reaped him a legendary career outside of basketball.
Various ventures Shaquille O'Neal owns which contribute to his net worth
Shaquille O'Neal was business-savvy during his time in the NBA, and has invested in and endorsed several brands over the past three decades. Some of his early investments in the stock market have bore great dividends with time.
His early investments during the bond rally in the 1990s included Apple, General Electric and PespiCo, all elite Fortune 500 companies. He was also an early investor in Google, something that he remarked about in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2019:
“One day, I hear these two gentlemen talking about Google search engines [...] I would like to invest in this. My guy hooked it up, we invested and then I forgot all about it.” (h/t) El País
One of O'Neal's longest partnerships was with the Sacramento Kings, where he served as a minority owner from 2013 to 2022.
As for his endorsements, the list is long, but the most prominent of the brands he has endorsed include Reebok, Buick, Papa Johns, Hulu, Epson, IcyHot, JCPenney, Five Guys and Krispy Kreme.
In addition to endorsing Papa John's and Five Guys, O'Neal also owns 155 Five Guys restaurants and nine Papa Johns franchises. His ownership extends to Auntie Anne's Pretzels as well, owning 17 such restaurants.
O'Neal's portfolio as an investor also includes a few duds. According to the Wall Street Journal, O'Neal invested in Loyal3 in 2015, a now-defunct company whose aim was to simplify the IPO market for the layman.
However, aside from all his investments in technology and food enterprises, one of his lesser-known ventures includes another highly attractive market in the United States: real estate.
In an Orlando Sentinel piece from 2008 (also noted on Wikipedia), likely following the 2008 financial crisis, O'Neal spoke about developing projects to assist homeowners facing foreclosure by purchasing their mortgage and selling their home back at affordable prices.
He has also developed housing projects in Newark, New Jersey.
O'Neal is also on the advisory board of Tout Industries, a social video service startup, and NRG esports. Several of his other sources of income have been his endeavors in the media, something he has long been associated with.
O'Neal has released full-length albums, is a DJ, and has been an actor, but the Hall of Famer's most notable appearances in the media have been as an NBA analyst for TNT.
Future business plans for Shaquille O’Neal potentially multiplying his net worth
Some of O'Neal's future plans include investing in real estate in Abu Dhabi, where he was at earlier this month for the 2022 NBA Abu Dhabi Games.
O'Neal's most recent venture was a series produced by TNT, "The Game Plan With Shaquille O'Neal," where he looked to assist small, largely black-owned businesses in Atlanta.
Of note, as with his current ventures, we have seen him largely absent from the burgeoning cryptocurrency domain.
For an incredibly wealthy investor like him, one would expect Shaquille O'Neal to have dipped into futuristic commodities like cryptocurrencies. However, his take on this is opposed to expectations, and rightfully so.
In an interview, Shaquille O'Neal explained his reasoning behind abstaining from investing in Bitcoin and NFTs :
"The best thing I've done in my life is listen. I've done a lot of things and it turned out well, and from the outside looking in it looks like 'Oh he's the expert.' That's not the case.
"So my strategy is, I invest in things that's going to change people's lives. That's the first thing I look at."
He added:
"The second thing I look at if it's too good to be true, I stay away from it. Even if I lose money. Like everybody (says) 'NFTs & Bitcoin,' and I don't understand it, I'm not doing it. I don't understand it."
While this may seem like an overly conservative investment strategy, he was unequivocally right about NFTs, with several losing millions after jumping in on the bandwagon.
