6 books that helped Junior Bridgeman become a billionaire

Late billionaire businessman and investor Junior Bridgeman carried one book with him no matter where he went: the Bible.

“If there is a book that guided him through everything, it was definitely the Bible,” said his daughter, Eden Bridgeman Sklenar. It was the cornerstone of a voracious reading habit that defined his life and approach to work.

“I would go into his office, whether it was at home or his main office here in Louisville, Kentucky, and there would always be a book that I could pull that he would lend, and it would have notes in it that he had written,” said Bridgeman Sklenar, CEO of EBONY Media Group, the parent company of EBONY, EBONY Studios and JET magazine. “He was an extreme, avid reader. … I always was like, ‘I don’t know when you find the time,’ but somehow he did.”  

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Knowledge (and free agency) is power

As part of Financial Planning’s Black History Month feature on the legacy and accomplishments of Bridgeman from his days as an National Basketball Association player in the 1970s and 1980s to building generational wealth off the court through smart investments and hard work, the below slideshow displays some of his favorite books. In a profile last year shortly before Bridgeman’s death, Forbes Magazine wrote that “nothing means more to Bridgeman than his bookshelf” and shared some of the books from which Bridgeman found knowledge and inspiration. To his daughter, his reading also reflected his drive and collaborative inclination to work with trusted financial advisors and other experts from the beginning of his investing days.

“My father understood that knowledge is power,” Bridgeman Sklenar told FP. “Gaining perspectives from others through their writing is something that he pushed himself to do, and he pushed my siblings and I to do as well. There wasn’t ever a time frame that my father wasn’t reading something because he knew there are much smarter individuals than him. So if he could gain that one competitive edge, I think it’s what he was always searching for, and he used books as that main source of knowledge-gaining, while also being someone who went and talked to individuals and gained knowledge in other ways.”

And Bridgeman often shared his knowledge and other resources with others, whether through mentoring, philanthropy or directly advocating for them. As president of the National Basketball Players Association between 1985 and 1988, he led the filing of a lawsuit that became known as the “Bridgeman antitrust suit” and resulted in the “Bridgeman agreement,” which included a provision granting veteran NBA players the right to unrestricted free agency after their second professional contracts in the league.

That’s why Bridgeman is “on our Mount Rushmore of union leaders, sort of our founding fathers,” said Ron Klempner, a longtime lawyer with the NBPA who is its senior counsel of labor relations. “Before the case, players were restricted free agents, meaning the team could match any offers and they weren’t free to leave on their own. That significantly impaired their bargaining leverage.”

Outside his service to the players union, his investing portfolio of restaurant franchises, Coca-Cola bottling businesses and, ultimately, a minority stake in his former team, the Milwaukee Bucks, Bridgeman set an example that today’s professional athletes are increasingly emulating. Michael Jordan was the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets for 13 years. Grant Hill is part of the ownership group for the Atlanta Hawks, and Dwayne Wade has a minority stake in the Utah Jazz. Alongside Jordan, Earvin “Magic” Johnson and LeBron James, Bridgeman is one of only four NBA players to become a billionaire, according to Forbes.

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Paving the way

Bridgeman’s story reminded Pat Brown, a wealth manager in the Lawrence, Kansas-based office of Creative Planning and the founder of an organization called Financial Literacy for Student Athletes, of a recent conversation with a college athlete about name, image and likeness pay in his freshman year. Brown calculated that a roughly 7% rate of return over 30 years meant that “this one year could literally make you a millionaire,” he said. The athlete had a “kind of hesitation, quiver in his voice,” when he talked about that possibility, Brown recalled. But legacies like Bridgeman’s show that a basic move to pay the taxes and put the remainder of the earnings in a Roth individual retirement account will pay off.

“With the NIL it’s hit-or-miss to find a kid who can really understand, ‘Hey if I put away X amount of dollars, this is what it could look like down the road,'” Brown said. “Your future you will appreciate this down the road.”

Bridgeman “didn’t stumble into ownership” but instead studied how to pursue that goal from some of his earliest days in the league, said Nisiar Smith, who advises professional athletes as the founder of Philadelphia-area registered investment advisory firm Courtside Wealth Partners. That intentionality of setting a goal for a life after basketball and then pursuing it are the types of lessons “that I’ve talked to a lot of my clients about,” he said.

“In my mind, there’s a replicable formula that he modeled that a lot of athletes today could look at,” Smith said. “Junior Bridgeman is proof that the most powerful athlete wealth story doesn’t happen on the court or the field. It happens after your last whistle.”

One of the places where that story played out was on the board of one of the largest banks in the country, Fifth Third Bank, where Bridgeman was a member for almost a decade. 

“Mr. Bridgeman brought to Fifth Third’s board the same principled leadership that defined his business legacy; shaped by decades of building enterprises that valued employees and customers as deeply as he valued family,” Chief Inclusion Officer Stephanie Smith said in a statement. “His counsel consistently reflected a belief that enduring performance is rooted in people, community and a culture of accountability, informed by his success owning hundreds of restaurants, leading major bottling operations and investing in iconic brands.” 

Scroll down the page to see a half dozen of Bridgeman’s favorite books about success in life and business. To read the main feature story, “Investing in the family franchise: Junior Bridgeman’s legendary lessons,” click here. To see a list of the books that advisors said were most impactful to their careers last year, follow this link.