$6m Kobe Bryant investment made earned his family hundreds of millions before his death

Kobe Bryant earned hundreds of millions during his legendary basketball career, but one of his smartest financial moves came away from the NBA court.

The Los Angeles Lakers icon, who would have turned 47 today (August 23), spent 20 seasons with the franchise before retiring in 2016, famously signing off with a 60-point performance against the Utah Jazz.

However, Bryant had already begun turning his attention towards life beyond basketball years before his final game.

Alongside launching Kobe Inc. and later getting involved in other investment and production ventures, he put around $6 million into a growing company that was attempting to challenge one of the biggest names in its industry. Within only a few years, his stake was worth tens of times what he had initially put in.

That company was sports drink brand BodyArmor. However, reports differ slightly over exactly when Bryant first bought into the business.

Bryant's BodyArmor stake became one of his most lucrative business ventures (Thos Robinson/Stringer/Getty Images)

Moneywise, also citing The Wall Street Journal, reports that Bryant acquired a 10 percent stake for $6 million in 2013, while Forbes describes him as an initial investor that year but says he acquired more than 10 percent of the company for close to $6 million in 2014.

ESPN previously reported that his first investment came in March 2014, with Bryant ultimately putting roughly $6 million into BodyArmor over time.

Either way, the move came well before his 2016 retirement and proved extraordinarily lucrative.

When Bryant first got involved, BodyArmor was still a relatively small challenger to Gatorade. However, its fortunes changed dramatically over the following years.

In 2018, Coca-Cola invested $300 million in the company at a reported $2 billion valuation.

At that point, Bryant's stake was estimated to be worth approximately $200 million — more than 30 times his original investment.

He wasn't simply watching the company's progress from the sidelines, either. Bryant served on BodyArmor's board and also wrote and co-directed advertisements involving athletes including James Harden, Kristaps Porzingis, Mike Trout and Skylar Diggins-Smith.

Bryant had already invested in BodyArmor years before leaving basketball in 2016 (Harry How/Staff/Getty Images)

In a late 2021 press release from Coca-Cola, BodyArmor co-founder Mike Repole later said: "If it wasn't for Kobe Bryant's vision and belief, BodyArmor would not have been able to achieve the success we had."

Bryant tragically died aged 41 in a helicopter crash in January 2020 alongside his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others.

However, the value of his BodyArmor investment continued to climb.

In 2021, Coca-Cola bought the remaining 70 percent of the sports drink company in a $5.6 billion cash deal which valued BodyArmor at around $8 billion.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that Bryant's estate stood to receive roughly $400 million for its stake.