On the fifth anniversary of Kobe Bryant’s tragic death, you’ve heard a lot about his on-court accomplishments. Twenty years in the NBA. Five world championships. Two Olympic gold medals. The 81-point game. And, perhaps most importantly, a maniacal work ethic that his rivals still talk about as his best quality five years after his passing.

This is all true. Kobe was an incredible player and is an all-time great. However, this type of remembrance leaves out a crucial part of his legacy: Kobe, the businessman.

If you look at the best athlete investments of all time, you typically encounter the same few stories: Junior Bridgeman building a fast-food empire worth hundreds of millions; David Beckham negotiating ownership of an MLS expansion franchise when he joined the LA Galaxy; Michael Jordan landing a royalty-based deal with Nike that is now worth billions; and Roger Federer replacing a $10 million annual sponsorship deal with Nike for equity in On Running, which is now valued at nearly $500 million.

Maybe someone even goes deep down the rabbit hole to impress you, telling the story of how Shaq invested in Google’s Series A in 1999 after overhearing two employees at the Beverly Hills Hotel talk about how this new technology would change the world.

These investments are etched into the imaginary Mount Rushmore of athlete investing. But people often forget that Kobe’s face should be right up there with them.

In 2013, Kobe Bryant paid $6 million for a 10% stake in BodyArmor. At the time, the sports drink startup only had $20 million in lifetime sales, but it was still a mosquito compared to Gatorade, which had 2,600 employees and $3.3 billion in annual revenue.

This was an unprecedented move. Even the most optimistic people would have told you that BodyArmor had a slim chance of competing with Gatorade. While all of the world’s best athletes were still employing the standard endorsement-for-equity model, Kobe was investing millions of his own money in a historically risky asset class.

This wasn’t a passive investment, either. Kobe’s $6 million investment made him BodyArmor’s third-largest shareholder, second only to the company’s two co-founders. Kobe also served on the company’s board and was even named creative director, later writing and directing multiple commercial advertisements for the brand.

This helped BodyArmor explode onto the scene. Led by serial entrepreneurs Mike Repole and Lance Collins, BodyArmor signed dozens of athlete partners, giving most of them skin in the game. The sports drink started popping up at sports venues and convenience stores nationwide, and the brand’s sales increased by 1,000% in four years.

“When I teamed up with Kobe, I thought I was getting an elite basketball player with great vision. I wound up with an Oscar winner who has his fingerprints all over our creative that we deeply benefited from. He invested his money to be part of the brand versus an endorsement deal. He was in when we had 20 million in sales, so consider him a co-founder,” BodyArmor founder Mike Repole told ESPN in 2018.

Coca-Cola took notice of BodyArmor’s rise, acquiring a 15% stake in the company in 2018 before eventually paying $5.6 billion in 2021 for complete control. Kobe passed away before the final sale, but the acquisition netted his family’s estate $400 million.

That’s a 67x return on investment — 69% CAGR over eight years — and more money than Kobe earned throughout his entire 20-year NBA career ($323 million).

The sports business has changed a lot over the years. What used to feel like a small part of the story now feels like the main course. Teams are worth billions. Media companies are building entirely new divisions to report on the industry, and athletes now want to be known as investors more than they want to be known as athletes.

Kobe certainly isn’t the only person responsible for the rise of today’s athlete investor; he just approached it in a much more aggressive way than anyone else ever has.

There are endless stories of Kobe scheduling meetings with executives in different cities during NBA road trips. The meeting itinerary was typically blank. Kobe just wanted to learn: What made them successful? What could he be doing differently? How can a globally recognized athlete build something bigger than themselves?

This type of get-to-know-you, informal meeting led to Kobe launching a venture capital firm with Web.com founder Jeff Stibel in 2013. Under the name Bryant Stibel, the $100 million VC fund primarily invested in tech and media businesses, including LegalZoom, Epic Games, and Alibaba. When Kobe Bryant passed away in 2020, the firm had over $2 billion in assets under management and at least 10 successful exits.

Among other things, Kobe was successful because he took more risks than the average athlete. With the security of hundreds of millions in NBA earnings and endorsement deals with companies like McDonald’s, Sprite, and Nintendo, Kobe founded Kobe Inc. in 2014, a holding company for all of his ideas and investments.

Kobe was one of the first athletes to truly embrace China as a market, frequently making trips there during the offseason with Nike to build his brand. In fact, Kobe paid $8 million to get out of his Adidas contract early in 2002, later signing a 4-year, $40 million contract with Nike. About 20% of NBA players still wear Kobe’s shoes today, and his subbrand under the Nike umbrella quadrupled its business over the last 12 months after the Bryant estate signed a new, long-term deal with Nike in 2021.

The truth is that Kobe would have made a lot of money regardless of whether he cared about the business behind sports. Brands partner with athletes for a reason, and someone with Kobe’s reach and influence was always going to be financially secure.

However, the difference between Kobe and other athletes is that Kobe didn’t just care about building a business based on his name; he had a real passion for storytelling.

In 2016, Kobe founded a media company called Granity Studios. Serving as the company’s CEO, the idea was to produce creative storytelling around sports.

Inside Kobe’s office in Orange County, you would find pictures of Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and J.K. Rowling plastered on the walls. Kobe spent years studying the industry’s best assets, including Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Disney movies.

Kobe produced some incredible projects, such as winning an Academy Award for his short film “Dear Basketball,” which he wrote, narrated, and produced himself.

Kobe also became a New York Times best-selling author by co-writing a novel called “The Wizenard Series: Training Camp.” Granity Studios produced the ESPN+ show “Detail,” which broke down basketball through film. And Kobe’s autobiography, “The Mamba Mentality: How I Play,” is still a #1 bestseller on Amazon seven years after its release, beating out books like Shoe Dog by Phil Knight and Open by Andre Agassi.

I realize this list of achievements almost sounds made up, especially considering I haven’t even mentioned that Kobe helped launch Hyperice, a $700 million recovery technology company Kobe tested products for while looking for an edge in training.

However, while some athletes inflate their resumes with artificial author or producer credits, Kobe put in the work. His post-NBA business success was a direct result of his unique approach and an unrelenting desire to be the best at everything he did.

“When I was playing, teammates used to say, well, Kobe’s not out on the road. What is he doing? You see me on the plane; he’s reading. What is he reading? He’s writing. What is he writing? I’m practicing. I’m writing. I’m practicing. I’m understanding how to tell stories. I’m reading Joseph Campbell: how to create arts, compelling arts, and plots. This is going back 15 years. I don’t just retire, write Dear Basketball, and luck into winning an Oscar. That stuff comes from hard work, from studying for fifteen years. How to write, and how to understand structure. And you can’t do that without having a serious love and commitment to the craft,” Kobe said in 2018.

Kobe Bryant will always be remembered for his basketball talent. He is one of the best pure scorers in NBA history and had a work ethic that has become the stuff of legend, making him the only player in NBA history with two jerseys retired by the same team.

But my point is simple: While everyone likes to focus on Kobe’s basketball talent, rightfully so, he was a multi-talented individual. Business. Creativity. Art. Storytelling. Before passing away in 2020, Kobe Bryant was dedicating his life to his second act.

This level of commitment has set the standard for the 21st-century athlete. Contracts have gotten so big that many athletes can now set their families up for generations simply through salary and index funds. But if you really want to leave a legacy, you have to commit just as much time and attention to detail as Kobe Bryant did.

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