Jerry Seinfeld has amassed an impressive fortune, but little in his portfolio resembles that of the superrich.
Forget stock options and acquisitions; the 69-year-old comedian has gotten mega-rich mostly by being funny.
Bloomberg pegs Seinfeld’s net worth at over $1 billion — with roughly half that sum, $465 million, coming from syndication deals for his eponymous sitcom.
“Seinfeld,” which Seinfeld and Larry David cocreated, premiered in 1989 and ended in 1998 after 180 episodes.
Turner Broadcasting paid more than $1 million an episode to air “Seinfeld” reruns, The New York Times reported in 1998. And when Netflix bought streaming rights to all nine seasons in 2019, it paid over $500 million in a deal that netted Seinfeld an additional $94 million, Bloomberg reports.
The comedian has also pocketed $100 million since he began touring in the ’80s, the outlet said.
That’s not all. There’s a $40 million real-estate portfolio, including homes in New York City, the Hamptons, and California, Bloomberg said. But Seinfeld’s vintage-car collection — featured prominently in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” — didn’t factor into its calculations, Bloomberg said.
While Bloomberg reported Seinfeld was now a billionaire, a rep for the comedian told Bloomberg its estimates were “inaccurate.”
Bloomberg’s estimates assume that Seinfeld invested his earnings, received a 15% cut of the TV-syndication deals, and a 35% cut of gross box-office sales on the road, which was sourced from Pollstar data, the outlet said.
Seinfeld’s representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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