Houston Rocket's Owner Tilman Fertitta Has A Jumbo Net Worth & It's Not All From Sports
He's got more money than fellow Texan Mark Cuban!
Tilman Fertitta. Right: Fertitta with his children.
It's well-known that owners of sports teams are pretty wealthy, but for Houston Rocket's owner Tilman Fertitta, it's not just from basketball that his massive net worth comes from.
Over the years, the 65-year-old billionaire CEO from Galveston, TX has amassed his astronomical income from owning a world-famous restaurant and hotel entertainment chains that recently secured him on Forbes' 2023 "world's richest sports owners" list.
Fertitta's net worth has sky-rocketed by the billions over the past ten years, data from Forbes shows, and now he's currently worth an impressive $8.1 billion.
So, where does it all come from?
If you've ever dined at the famous Forrest Gump-themed restaurant Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. or gambled at a Golden Nugget Casino Resort, you have this Texan to thank.
His Houston-based company Fertitta Entertainment owns Landry's Dining, Entertainment, and Hospitality, which is responsible for eateries like Saltgrass Steakhouse and Rainforest Cafe, among many other local and national spots.
Fertitta's popular Golden Nugget Casinos have also expanded to five locations across the United States, even in tourist-filled gambling cities like Las Vegas, NV, and Atlantic City, NJ.
Forbes's data shows that Fertitta's worth exploded from just $2.4 billion back in 2014 to the 8 billion bucks that he's worth today, and he's all self-made from a working-class background.
Fertitta, though not the richest Texan, beat out a fellow self-made billionaire and Texas team sports owner, the Shark Tank star Mark Cuban, whose net worth is $4.6 billion.
It's simply a testament that you don't need to be a "nepotism-baby" to earn millions upon billions in cash. Hard work, savvy investments, and entrepreneurial spirit can make a person one of the world's wealthiest sports owners.