Aaron Rodgers: A Billionaire in the Making

June 17, 2025

Welcome to Gridiron Wallet — where NFL players don’t just chase rings, they chase bags. From million-dollar grills to side hustles that slap, we’re decoding how football’s finest make it, spend it, and sometimes… fumble it. 🏈🔥

The latest edition of our newsletter covers :

  • Aaron Rodgers’ Investments

  • Crown Jewels of Aaron Rodgers' Portfolio

  • The Philanthropist

✍️Paper Play

A Billionaire in the Making: Aaron Rodgers’ Portfolio Is Thicker Than His NFL Resume

Aaron Rodgers signed a one-year, $13.65 million deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers last week that includes $10 million in guarantees and could rise to $19.5 million with incentives.

That deal pales in comparison to those Rodgers has signed in the past. In 2022, he became the first player to sign a deal worth over $50 million a year. While this contract with the Steelers is comparatively small, it did push the quarterback to No. 1 on the league’s all-time career earnings list. His $380.7 million edges Matthew Stafford, who is second.

But his NFL salary, believe it or not, is only a small part of the little business empire that Rodgers has been building. Given Rodgers' preference for privacy — as shown by how secretive he was about his recent marriage — it's likely that there are lots of deals we don’t even know about. 

And Celebrity Net Worth’s claim that Rodgers has a net worth of $200 million is not much more than a guess. However, there’s no doubt that his true net worth is one of the highest among pro athletes.

In 2017, he became the first active NFL player to invest in an NBA franchise. Rodgers purchased a one percent stake in the Milwaukee Bucks, which made sense considering he’d played his entire career till then with the Packers just up the road in Green Bay.

When he bought his stake in 2017, the team was worth $1.1 billion, as per Forbes. Now, it’s worth over $4 billion. Doing some quick math, this means that if he had invested around $10 million, his stake would now be valued at approximately $40 million.

He has also made a prescient bet on male grooming company Manscaped. Rodgers invested in 2019 or 2020 (again, shrouded in mystery), and the company had a meteoric rise. It reached a $1 billion valuation by 2021, thanks largely to a very unique marketing approach. 

That said, not all of Rodgers’ investments have worked out, such as the helmet company Vicis, which was sold for parts a few years after the QB invested $30 million. However, similar to his success on the football field, he hits his mark far more often than not.

📊Gridiron Money Metrics

And for those wondering, here is the rest of the NFL’s top 10 in career earnings:

  1. Aaron Rodgers - $380.7 million

  2. Matthew Stafford - $364.3 million

  3. Tom Brady - $333 million

  4. Russell Wilson - $305.4 million

  5. Matt Ryan - $303.7 million

  6. Kirk Cousins - $294.2 million

  7. Drew Brees - $269.7 million

  8. Ben Roethlisberger - $267.3 million

  9. Eli Manning $252.3 million

  10. Peyton Manning - $248.7 million

It won’t surprise you to see that they are all quarterbacks. While Kirk Cousins and Matt Ryan seem lucky to be on this list, the rest of the guys are Super Bowl winners who are likely to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame when all is said and done.

💸Side Hustles

Yoga and More: Crown Jewels of Aaron Rodgers' Portfolio

One standout? CorePower Yoga.

The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback has been a longtime advocate of yoga and mindfulness. He publicly admitted once how a yoga retreat gave him much-needed mental calibration to achieve the balance and peace he was looking for in life.

“I’ve done many meditation retreats, yoga retreats — things that have helped me get in a better headspace and have a greater peace in my life,” he said on The Pat McAfee Show in 2023.

The quarterback’s personal experience and belief in the philosophy of yoga made his stake in CorePower a natural fit. 

Rodgers’ investment in the largest yoga chain in the United States, with over 200 studios across 23 states, reaped massive dividends after it was acquired by TSG Consumer Partners in 2019. The deal, reportedly valued in the ‘hundreds of millions’, also marked the first investment from TSG’s $4 billion fund, suggesting a strong return for early investors like Rodgers.

Another major jewel in the 4x NFL MVP’s portfolio is Therabody, maker of the Theragun. Between 2017 and 2020, the recovery tech brand scaled rapidly, growing 30x profits in just three years. 

This led to Ravens WR DeAndre Hopkins becoming one of the earliest NFL-related investors in Therabody in 2020, post-Rodgers. Two years later, the company reported a whopping 71% market share in the massage device category and raised $165 million more.

Both these bets reflect Rodgers’ broader playbook: Invest in what he knows and lives by, the focus being on scalable, consumer-facing brands with mass appeal. It is something that brands like Hydrow, Super Coffee, Mack Weldon, Full Swing, and Hydrant in his portfolio reflect too.

Unsurprisingly, his VC firm, RX3 Ventures, which launched in 2018, has already seen success by raising $150 million across two funds, thanks to a star-studded group of backers including Jay-Z, Kevin Durant, and James Harden. 

So, as Rodgers continues to expand RX3’s footprint, he’s also setting a new benchmark for athlete-driven investing — authentic, calculated, and built to last.

💡 Gridiron Wallet Trivia

Did you know?
🌿 After his 2020 ayahuasca retreat in Peru, Aaron Rodgers won back-to-back MVPs (2020, 2021) — and earned over $100 million in salary and bonuses during those two seasons.

🏈✨Players who give a damn

Aaron Rodgers ‘The Philanthropist’

With nearly $380.7 million earned through his NFL contracts and multiple successful investments, Aaron Rodgers has amassed quite a bit of wealth for himself. But apart from balling on the field and making big business moves, the quarterback has also channeled his energy and resources into impactful charitable work over the last decade.

One of his earliest notable philanthropic efforts came in 2018, when the proud native of Northern California founded the Aaron Rodgers NorCal Fire Recovery Fund through the North Valley Community Foundation. He seeded it with an initial $1 million to aid communities devastated by the Camp Fire. Since then, he’s maintained involvement via recurring grants, most recently funneling another $25,000 to support wildfire relief efforts.

In July 2024, Rodgers responded again to wildfire victims, this time the Thompson Fire, by allocating $100,000 via ten $10,000 grants through his NorCal Fund and the North Valley Community Foundation. These grants delivered emergency relief, including shelter, transportation, food, diapers, and other essential supplies for displaced residents.

And Rodgers’ philanthropic reach extends beyond firefighting efforts. According to public filings from the Aaron Rodgers Foundation, the 501(c)(3) has channeled hundreds of thousands into causes focused on education, food security, and faith-based programs. In 2021, he donated $1 million to support small businesses in Chico and Butte County, his hometown region.

Also an advocate for mental well-being, aligned with his investments in mindfulness and yoga, Rodgers has supported scholarships, athletic facility renovations at UC Berkeley (his alma mater), and pediatric cancer research via the MACC Fund. In 2024, he raised $3 million through a celebrity flag football tournament benefiting local charities.

When asked about his drive to undertake such philanthropic efforts, Rodgers emphasized a mission larger than football. “I will always be committed to helping my beloved Northern California home areas,” he said during the Thompson Fire recovery push.

The Steelers star is indeed building a legacy of service and investment in his communities — one measurable grant at a time.

📆 NFL Money Stat of 1920

In the very first NFL season (then called the American Professional Football Association), most players earned just $50–$100 per game.

That’s right — if you played all 11 games, you’d walk away with maybe $1,000 for the entire season.

For comparison, a decent leather helmet cost about $8, and a Ford Model T? $395.