Wayne Gretzky net worth
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What is Wayne Gretzky’s net worth?
Wayne Gretzky is a Canadian-born retired professional hockey player and entrepreneur with a net worth of US$250 million. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. From 1979 to 1999, he played in the NHL for 20 seasons. During this period, his total salary in the NHL was $46 million. During his playing days, he earned an extra $50 million from endorsements. After the merger, after adjusting for inflation, his income was approximately $150 million. He invested very wisely and built an empire that now includes sports team ownership, vineyards, and real estate companies.
Early life and career start
Wayne Douglas Gretzky was born on January 26, 1961 in Brantford, Ontario. He has three brothers and one sister. His father Walter taught him, his siblings, and their friends how to play hockey on the homemade skating rink in his backyard, and Gretzky has shown talent since he was a child. By the age of 6, he was already playing on a team of 10-year-olds, and as he progressed, he continued to attract people’s attention. His outstanding performance on the ice often caused him to receive negative attention from other players and jealous parents, so it is not uncommon for him to be booed during games.
On the one hand, to help him develop his career, on the other hand, to help him get rid of the negative atmosphere of his hometown, his parents helped him move to Toronto to play hockey there. At that time, the player was not allowed to play in different regions, but his parents challenged the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association and won, so he was allowed to play Junior B hockey with the Toronto Nationals, and eventually won the Rookie of the Year B in Metro Junior. Hockey League 1975-76 season. He was eventually selected to play for Sault Ste. in the 1977 Ontario Junior Hockey League Draft. Mary Greyhound at the age of 16.
Professional hockey career
In 1978, at only 17 years old, Gretzky signed a seven-year personal service contract with a World Hockey Association (WHA) Indianapolis racer. He initially had to join the WHA instead of the NHL because the NHL does not allow signing players under the age of 20. Before being traded to the Edmonton Oilers, he only played for the racing team briefly. When his team joined the NHL after the dissolution of the WHA in 1979, he played an important role in leading them to four Stanley Cup victories.
In the Oilers, he won the Hart Memorial Trophy in his first NHL season and became the NHL Most Valuable Player. His star continued to climb, becoming the first player in NHL history to break the 200-point mark, scoring more than 200 points in a single season and other achievements. He was then traded twice and played for the Los Angeles Kings (1988-1996) and the St. Louis Blues (1996) at the same time. In 1996, he signed a two-year, $8 million contract with the New York Rangers as a free agent.
In 1999, he retired from his career while playing for the New York Rangers. During his career, Gretzky won 9 Hart Trophies for Most Valuable Players, 10 Atros Trophies with the highest points of the season, and 5 Leicester B. After retiring, he was immediately inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame. . When he retired from the NHL, he maintained a staggering 61 records. His No. 99 jersey was also retired across the league, and he was the only person to receive this honor at the time.
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Participate after retirement
After Gretzky’s career ended, he assumed a management position and became the executive director of the Canadian National Men’s Hockey Team at the 2002 Winter Olympics. He later became part of the owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, the NHL team, and in May 2000 cooperated with the majority shareholder Steven Elman to purchase 10% of their shares. From October 2005 to September 2009, he served as the team coach. In 2016, he became the vice chairman and partner of Oilman Entertainment Group.
Business risk and recognition
In addition to being a professional athlete, Gretzky has also invested heavily in the ownership of sports teams. He bought the Hull Olympic team of the Quebec Major Hockey League for 175,000 Canadian dollars in 1985 and sold it for 550,000 Canadian dollars in 1992. In 1991, when Bruce McNall acquired the Toronto Algos player of the Canadian Football League, Gretzky and John Candi were minority shareholders; they eventually sold the team in 1994. He once again cooperated with McNall and bought a rare Honus Wagner T206 cigarette card for $451,000 and later sold it. In addition, Gretzky is a partner of sports equipment manufacturer First Team Sports and roller hockey rink operator Worldwide Roller Hockey, Inc.
In addition, Gretzky has won many lucrative endorsement contracts during his professional hockey career. By 1995, due to his deals with major global brands such as Coca-Cola, Domino’s Pizza, Sharp Corporation, and Upper Deck Company, he was listed as one of the five highest-paid athlete endorsements in North America. Finally, Gretzky partnered with Andrew Peller Ltd. in 2017 to open Wayne Gretzky Estates, a winery and distillery located in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. He also has restaurants, such as No. 99 Gretzky’s Wine & Whisky at Edmonton International Airport, which opened in 2016; Studio 99, located in Rogers Square, Edmonton, Canada, opened in 2018.
personal life
Gretzky met actress Janet Jones while serving as a judge on the TV show “Dance Mania”. They started dating in 1987, he proposed in January 1988 and got married in July of the same year. According to reports, their wedding cost more than 1 million U.S. dollars and was called “Royal Wedding” by Canadian media. The couple has five children in total: three sons and two daughters. One of their daughter, singer and model Paulina Gretzky (Paulina Gretzky) has been in a relationship with professional golfer Dustin Johnson since 2013. They have two children.
real estate
In the late 1980s, shortly after moving to the Los Angeles Kings, Wayne purchased a large property in the gated community of Beverly Hills in Beverly Park. A few years later, he sold his house to a billionaire named Eric Schmidt (instead of Google billionaire Eric Schmidt). Schmidt bought the vacant land next door for US$3 million and sold the combined estate for US$40 million in 2014.
In 2007, Wayne and his wife customized a mansion in a closed country club in Thousand Oaks, California. The property occupies 6.5 acres and has a 13,000 square foot mansion. The Gretzkys family sold the house in 2014 to former baseball player Lenny Dykstra — who at the time described himself as a financial guru — for a numbing $18.5 million. A year later, the real estate market collapsed, and Leoni’s status as a master also collapsed. Lenny tried to sell the house for $18.5 million, which may be the worst time to sell a house in history. He lowered prices over and over again, eventually losing his foreclosure after declaring bankruptcy and being arrested on fraud charges. In order to fully recover, Wayne and Janet Gretzky (Wayne Gretzky) repurchased the house in 2018 for $13.5 million.
In October 2020, Wayne and Janet sold their coveted property for $22.9 million.
