Junior Bridgeman
Junior Bridgeman is a businessman and former professional basketball player from the United States. From 1975 to 1987, Bridgeman was a member of the Milwaukee Bucks in the National Basketball League (NBA). Junior Bridgeman currently owns Ebony and Jet magazines. Despite never earning more than $350,000 per season during his NBA career, Junior Bridgeman now has a net worth of more than $600 million, making him one of the richest NBA players.
Junior Bridgeman played for Coach Denny Crum at the University of Louisville. In 1974 and 1975, he was named Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year. He averaged 15.5 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 2.7 assists in 87 games during his collegiate career at Louisville.
Junior Bridgeman was traded by the Los Angeles Lakers to the Milwaukee Bucks along with David Meyers, Elmore Smith, and Brian Winters in exchange for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Walt Wesley. He averaged 8.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.9 assists as a rookie with Milwaukee in 1975–1976 under coach Larry Costello. He had a career-high 41 points in a 129–125 loss to Boston on December 15, 1976.
Junior Bridgeman scored 32 points and had six assists in a Game 1 Eastern Conference Semifinals loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on April 5, 1981. After nine seasons in Milwaukee, Bridgeman was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers on September 29, 1984, along with Harvey Catchings, Marques Johnson, and cash for Terry Cummings, Craig Hodges, and Ricky Pierce. He returned to Milwaukee for one more season before retiring in 1987 after spending two years in Los Angeles. He played in 711 Bucks games, the most in franchise history. Bridgeman scored 11,517 points in his 12-year NBA career.
Junior Bridgeman worked and learned the business model of Wendy's fast-food restaurant franchise during the off-seasons of his playing career. He invested in the franchise after retiring from the NBA and eventually owned over 100 different Wendy's and Chili's restaurants before selling in 2016. Bridgeman Foods Inc's President and CEO, Bridgeman, became a bottler for The Coca-Cola Company in 2017 and signed a letter of intent to buy bottling operations in Canada in 2018. Bridgeman purchased Ebony and Jet for $14 million in December 2020 through Bridgeman Sports and Media, after the magazines declared bankruptcy earlier that year.
Born: September 17, 1953
Nationality: American
