Image: Wikimedia Commons
MLB: The Builders Behind Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr., Nolan Ryan and Ryan Howard
The contracts were just the seed money. What these nine built with it — teams of their own, ranches and beef companies, media platforms, venture funds and a certain field in Iowa — is the real highlight reel.
Produced and Edited by The Bourgeois Society Staff
Baseball money used to end at the clubhouse door. These nine made sure it didn't. A mother's food stamps turned into a finance lesson a superstar never forgot.
A 12th-round pitcher who started buying ranch land while he was still playing, because he had watched teammates retire to nothing. A kid in Puerto Rico playing with a stick and a ball of tape who became the greatest catcher of his generation — then a venture capitalist.
Some were released, doubted or suspended; all of them built something that employs people, feeds families and gives back.
Selected on the obstacle climbed, the thing built, and the good given back — and fact-checked line by line, with sources linked under every profile.
For a long time, the money in basketball flowed one way: the players got paid, and everybody else got rich. These eleven flipped it. A bench player who out-earned the superstars.
A kid from Akron who became a billionaire while still playing. A Newark giant who turned chicken shops and car washes into an empire. Most of them started in neighborhoods where none of this was supposed to be reachable — and all of them built something that employs people, feeds families and gives back.
Selected on the obstacle climbed, the thing built, and the good given back — and fact-checked line by line, with sources linked under every profile.
MLB Hall of Famer & Principal Owner, Ryan Sanders Sports & Entertainment — Round Rock, TX
Official links: Website
Image: National Baseball Hall of Fame
Why We're Inspired
Nolan Ryan was not supposed to last.
Drafted in the 12th round out of high school in 1965 in the small town of Alvin, Texas, he pitched for 27 seasons across four teams — a record for longevity — piling up 5,714 strikeouts and seven no-hitters, marks no one has come close to touching, and became the first major leaguer to sign a million-dollar contract.
What sets him apart on this list is when he started his second career: during the first one. He began buying Texas ranch land in the 1960s, while he was still a young pitcher, because he had watched too many teammates reach retirement with nothing waiting for them — and he was determined his family would not.
"A lot of the players I played with after their careers were over, they hadn’t prepared for life after baseball and had nothing to do. I was quite aware of that. The length of a baseball career isn’t normally very long, so I did what I needed to prepare."
The Story
The ranches came first, and cattle led to almost everything else: Nolan Ryan Beef, supplying grocery stores and restaurants across Texas, and a portfolio held through Ryan Sanders Sports & Entertainment — the family company he leads as principal owner alongside his sons and the Sanders family — that has spanned a cattle farm and meat company to a turf company and a community bank.
In 2000 the family launched the Round Rock Express, the Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers near Austin, keeping the Ryans in the game they love as owners rather than employees. It is a Texas empire built the way he pitched: early, deliberately, and for the long haul.
Sources
Front Office Sports — “Nolan Ryan Takes the Long and Diverse View for Business Empire Growth”
Wikipedia — “Nolan Ryan”
Texas Highways — “Nolan Ryan Still Brings the Heat — In Baseball and Business”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Ken Griffey Jr. · Ryan Howard
New York Yankees Captain and Hall of Famer · Co-founder, The Players' Tribune and Arena Club — Miami, FL
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
Derek Jeter spent all 20 of his seasons with the New York Yankees, winning five World Series titles, making 14 All-Star teams and serving as the team's captain — 'The Captain' — before entering the Hall of Fame. What he built next changed how athletes speak.
On October 1, 2014, days after retiring, he launched The Players' Tribune, a platform where athletes publish their own stories in their own words, directly to fans; Minute Media acquired it in 2019 to take it global.
He then served as part-owner and CEO of the Miami Marlins from 2017 to 2022, co-founded Arena Club, the digital sports trading-card platform, in 2022, co-launched the Greatness Wins apparel line, and joined FOX Sports as an MLB broadcaster in 2023 — a second career built entirely on ownership, media and letting players control their own narrative.
"My goal was to find a way for athletes to tell their stories when they wanted to tell it and how they wanted to tell it"
The Story
Jeter started giving back almost as soon as he arrived. He founded the Turn 2 Foundation in 1996, with his father, a substance-abuse counselor, to motivate young people to turn away from drugs and alcohol and toward healthy lifestyles.
The foundation has distributed more than $45 million to its programs, and its Jeter's Leaders have graduated high school and gone on to college at a 100 percent rate in the cohorts he cites. The 2025 Derek Jeter Invitational golf tournament in the Bahamas raised more than $1.8 million more for Turn 2's youth programs.
Sources
Boardroom — “Derek Jeter / Arena Club baseball cards” (CSV proof link)
The Players' Tribune — “Derek Jeter” contributor profile
Minute Media — “Derek Jeter's The Players' Tribune to Join the Minute Media Portfolio”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Alex Rodriguez · Ken Griffey Jr.
Seattle Mariners Hall of Famer, 'The Kid' · Part-Owner, Seattle Mariners and Seattle Sounders FC — Seattle, WA
Official links: Instagram
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
Ken Griffey Jr. was the No. 1 overall pick in 1987, the teenage son of a major leaguer carrying a franchise on his back — and the pressure nearly broke him: at 17, he attempted suicide, a story he later told so other young people would hear it.
He rebuilt himself into the most joyful player of his generation — the backward cap, the sweetest swing in baseball, 630 home runs, 13 All-Star selections, 10 Gold Gloves and the 1997 AL MVP — then, after injury-plagued years in Cincinnati, won the 2005 NL Comeback Player of the Year award.
In retirement he did something almost no Black former player had done: in 2020 he and his family joined the Seattle Sounders FC ownership group, and on October 25, 2021 he purchased a stake in the Mariners, becoming the first former player in team history to hold a partnership interest in the club.
"This is a dream come true because of the relationship I've always had with the team, its fans, and the city of Seattle. I view this as another way to continue to give back to an organization and community that has always supported me, and my family."
The Story
Griffey frames ownership itself as giving back — a way to keep contributing to the organization and Seattle community that supported him for three decades.
He had already reshaped the game's culture once: he is credited with starting the tradition of players wearing No. 42 on Jackie Robinson Day, after asking Commissioner Bud Selig for permission to honor Robinson in 2007.
He also serves as a senior adviser to the MLB Commissioner and on the Baseball Hall of Fame's Board of Directors, and has taken up sports photography, shooting NFL and MLS matches and the Masters from the other side of the lens.
Sources
KNKX Public Radio — “Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. joins Mariners ownership group”
Bleacher Report — “Ken Griffey Jr. Joins Mariners' Ownership Group; 1st Player to Do So in Team History”
Seattle Sounders FC — “Baseball Hall of Famer and Seattle icon Ken Griffey Jr. and family join Sounders FC Ownership Group” (via Wikipedia references)
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Derek Jeter · Nolan Ryan
MLB Legend & Founder, Chairman & CEO, A-Rod Corp; Co-Owner & Co-Chairman, Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx — Miami, FL
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
Alex Rodriguez was born in New York City to immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic, in the shadow of the old Yankee Stadium, and raised largely in Miami after the family moved south.
When he was 12 — two years after his father left — he went to a supermarket with his mother and realised she was paying with food stamps.
She worked two jobs, rising at 4:30 in the morning and taking two trains: a secretary by day, serving tables at night, so rarely free that he can count on one hand the times she saw him play as a boy.
He became a 14-time All-Star and a World Series champion with the New York Yankees across 22 seasons — and then lost a full season, 2014, to a suspension for performance-enhancing drugs that could have ended him.
Instead he did the slow work of rebuilding: therapy, owning his failures out loud, and opening business meetings by addressing the suspension nobody else wanted to mention.
"I got a lot of my determination and grit from my mom."
The Story
Rodriguez had started building long before he retired. A-Rod Corp, the diversified investment and holding company he founded and still runs as chairman and CEO, spans real estate, sports, media and technology.
In June 2025 he became co-owner and co-chairman of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA's Minnesota Lynx — a landmark, he has said, for Black and Hispanic ownership in the league — and he now spends much of his public voice on expanding Latino opportunity and representation in sports, telling the story of the food-stamp supermarket trip not as a wound but as the source of his financial discipline.
The superstar who fell hardest built his second act on saying so.
Sources
McKinsey — “Alex Rodriguez on expanding Latino opportunity and representation in sports”
YPO — “Alex Rodriguez: From Strikeouts to Second Chances”
Andscape — “From athlete to owner, Alex Rodriguez following in Magic Johnson's footsteps”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · David Ortiz · Derek Jeter
Philadelphia Phillies World Series Champion and NL MVP · Partner, SeventySix Capital and Chairman of its Athlete Venture Group — Philadelphia, PA
Official links: Website · Instagram · X
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
Ryan Howard was a fifth-round draft pick in 2001 who spent years blocked in the minors behind Jim Thome while general managers around the league tried to trade for him.
When his chance finally came he exploded: 2005 NL Rookie of the Year, 2006 NL MVP with 58 home runs, a 2008 World Series title, and the fastest player in baseball history to reach both 100 and 200 career home runs.
Then, on the final play of the 2011 NLDS, he ruptured his Achilles tendon — the injury that effectively ended his prime.
Howard rebuilt himself a second time, off the field: while still playing, he became a Partner at SeventySix Capital, the Philadelphia-area sports-tech venture capital firm, and Chairman of its Athlete Venture Group, and he is a partner in Colbie's Southern Kissed Chicken, working with chef Fabio Viviani.
"Other than playing the game I love, my passion is investing in innovative companies and helping the entrepreneurs behind them succeed."
The Story
Howard's venture work is built around teaching, not just investing. Through the Athlete Venture Group, professional athletes invest, learn and work directly with top sports-tech startups and founders — and Howard stresses to players that they should not rush into speculative investing, but first reach their savings goals and secure their families' financial stability.
He says he was inspired by Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Jay-Z and LeBron James — athletes who stopped simply collecting the check and started writing it — and he now mentors founders and fellow athletes, including Hall of Famers Ralph Sampson and Brian Westbrook, through the same door he walked through.
Sources
EisnerAmper — “Keynote Speaker, Ryan Howard Hits Homerun at the Philadelphia Business Summit”
Sports Illustrated / SportTechie — “Ryan Howard draws venture capital inspiration from athlete moguls”
SGB Media — “Ralph Sampson Joins SeventySix Capital's Athlete Venture Group”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Nolan Ryan · Torii Hunter
Minnesota Twins, Angels and Tigers All-Star · Co-owner, Tender Smokehouse Restaurants — Prosper, TX
Official links: Website · Instagram · X
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
Torii Hunter grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in a fairly impoverished downtown neighborhood — the son of Shirley, an elementary school teacher, and Theotis, an electrician — in a city where drugs, guns and gangs were the easy road.
Sports were his way out, but the minors nearly broke him first: as a broke Double-A player he slept in a Geo Prizm he shared with a teammate, waking with car-seat imprints on his cheek and sneaking showers in the clubhouse, ready to quit. He didn't.
Over 19 seasons he became 'Spider-Man' — a five-time All-Star, nine-time consecutive Gold Glove center fielder and two-time Silver Slugger with 353 home runs. In retirement he has built in North Texas as a co-owner of Tender Smokehouse, the Texas barbecue chain he owns with his wife Katrina, Eddie Bell, Andrea Weimer and fellow former big leaguer Matt Kemp.
"I broke down and cried tears of joy right there in the hallway. Just a few months earlier, I was waking up with car seat imprints on my cheek every morning and sneaking showers in the clubhouse, ready to quit baseball. Now, I was heading to The Show."
The Story
Hunter's giving has a long paper trail: the Torii Hunter Project Education Initiative funds college scholarships for students in Arkansas, California, Nevada and Minnesota; he partnered with MLB to maintain inner-city diamonds, supported Big Brothers and the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and helped fund a youth softball field in Placentia, California — work that earned him the Branch Rickey Award in 2009 for excellence in charity.
Tender Smokehouse, founded in Celina in 2017 and ranked No. 2 on Yelp's national places-to-eat list within two years, has grown to five North Texas locations built, its owners say, on food, service and atmosphere — and word of mouth, never advertising.
Sources
Whitesboro News Record — “Tender Smokehouse opens doors in W'boro”
Encyclopedia of Arkansas — “Torii Kedar Hunter (1975–)”
CultureMap Dallas — “Tender Smokehouse BBQ restaurant north of Dallas brings brisket to Aubrey”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Ryan Howard · Frank Thomas
Chicago White Sox Hall of Famer, 'The Big Hurt' · Controlling Owner, Go The Distance Baseball — the Field of Dreams, Dyersville, IA
Official links: Instagram · X
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
Frank Thomas grew up in Columbus, Georgia, in a family that didn't have much — and he wasn't even drafted out of high school in 1986, a snub he said scarred him.
He went to Auburn on a football scholarship, became a baseball star, and the White Sox took him seventh overall in 1989. 'The Big Hurt' then put together one of the greatest right-handed hitting careers ever: 19 seasons, 521 home runs, back-to-back AL MVP awards in 1993 and 1994, a .301 lifetime average — and he did it clean through the steroid era, advocating for drug testing as early as 1995 and volunteering as the only active player interviewed for the Mitchell Report.
After baseball he founded W2W Records and Big Hurt Beer, and in September 2021 he led the group that bought a controlling interest in Go The Distance Baseball, the company that owns the Field of Dreams movie site in Iowa.
"We are confident people will come, people will most definitely come."
The Story
Thomas didn't just buy a movie set — he bought a youth-baseball mission. After taking control of the Field of Dreams site, his group announced plans for nine youth baseball and softball fields, team dormitories and a boutique hotel, so boys and girls could play daily on the most famous diamond in film.
He has said there is no better place to grow the game and get kids involved. The site, steps from where MLB staged its celebrated Field of Dreams games in 2021 and 2022, remains open to the public, with families still walking out of the corn to play catch.
Sources
USA Today (cited via Wikipedia) — “Hall of Famer Frank Thomas' group buys controlling interest in 'Field of Dreams' movie site”
ND Insider / USA Today Network — “MLB won't return to Field of Dreams site in 2023, Frank Thomas says”
Fox News via The JJ Report — “Iowa 'Field of Dreams' site purchased by group helmed by Hall of Famer Frank Thomas”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Torii Hunter · Ivan Rodriguez
MLB Hall of Famer & Partner, z9 Capital; Founder, Pudge's Pizza — Arlington, TX
Official links: Website · Instagram · X
Image: MLB Trade Rumors / USA TODAY Sports
Why We're Inspired
Ivan 'Pudge' Rodriguez grew up in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, where his mother taught elementary school and his father worked as an electrician for a construction company — a family that lived, as he tells it, day to day. The boys played ball in empty fields around town with a stick and a roll of balled-up tape.
His father, an amateur catcher, moved him behind the plate and taught him to throw; on television he found his model in Johnny Bench, proof that a catcher who was not all that big could do everything well.
Signed by the Texas Rangers at 16, he debuted at 19 and became, over 21 seasons, arguably the greatest catcher ever: 14 All-Star selections, a record 13 Gold Gloves, the 1999 American League MVP award, a World Series title with the 2003 Florida Marlins, a major-league record 2,427 games caught and 2,844 hits — the most by any catcher — and first-ballot election to the Hall of Fame.
"This is such an incredible honor for me. A little kid from Puerto Rico with a big dream. Never let them take your dream away from you."
The Story
Rodriguez retired determined to stay busy — advice Nolan Ryan himself gave him — and built a business life in two directions at once. He joined z9 Capital, the South Florida venture firm, as a partner, backing revenue-stage technology startups and insisting his role is active, not ceremonial: advising and helping grow the companies in the portfolio.
And he put his name over a door back home: Pudge's Pizza, founded in Texas, expanded to Puerto Rico's Distrito T-Mobile entertainment district as its first location outside Texas — a family restaurant decorated with his career, bringing the kid from Vega Baja's name, and jobs, back to the island that raised him.
Sources
SABR — “Iván Rodríguez” biography
TechCrunch — “MLB All-Star Ivan Rodriguez is joining a VC fund”
TheScore — “Pudge calls HOF induction an incredible honor, dream come true”
Distrito T-Mobile — “Iván ‘Pudge’ Rodríguez brings his Pizza to El Distrito”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Frank Thomas · David Ortiz
Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer and 3-Time World Series Champion · Founder, Big Papi's Kitchen and the David Ortiz Children's Fund · FOX Sports MLB Analyst
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Why We're Inspired
David Ortiz was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and signed by Seattle at 17 before being traded to Minnesota — where, after injuries and years of being buried, the Twins released him in December 2002 as a cost-cutting move rather than pay him in arbitration.
Boston signed him cheaply, for a non-guaranteed $1.25 million, and 'Big Papi' became the clutch heart of the team that ended an 86-year World Series drought in 2004, then won again in 2007 and 2013, when he was World Series MVP.
Over 20 seasons he hit 541 home runs, made 10 All-Star teams and entered the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 2022.
Off the field he built Big Papi's Kitchen — a food line of chips, salsas and hummus rooted in Dominican flavors — plus Big Papi Productions, and he was an initial partner in Dugout Ventures, investing alongside other players in baseball businesses.
"Boston will always be my home away from home"
The Story
In 2005 Ortiz visited children recovering from heart surgery at CEDIMAT Hospital in the Dominican Republic, and in 2007 he founded the David Ortiz Children's Fund to help children in the Dominican Republic and New England get critical cardiac care their families cannot afford.
The fund, run with partners including Massachusetts General Hospital, says it has saved over 500 lives in the Dominican Republic and raised more than $2 million through events including his annual celebrity golf classic. Ortiz, now a FOX Sports studio analyst, has said saving lives matters more to him than home runs or championships.
Sources
David Ortiz Children's Fund — “David Ortiz”
SABR — “David Ortiz” biography
Boardroom — “Big Papi Goes to Cooperstown”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Ivan Rodriguez · Alex Rodriguez