Lance Armstrong's Net Worth Still Lives Strong
It’s gotta be weird when the first thing most people think of when they hear your name is a doping scandal. Or any sort of scandal, actually. I’d almost rather be a one-hit wonder or a child actor who currently sells real estate.
Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those scenarios. How many of us WISH we’d recorded “Who Let The Dogs Out?” first?
The thing is, there’s so much more to Lance Armstrong’s story than the conflict and controversy. I mean, that’s still a big part of it, but it would be a shame to forget the rest. After all, he accomplished a great deal both before and after the whole “performance enhancing drugs” thing. And a generation later, despite all he lost in the conflict, Land Armstrong’s net worth is fairly respectable - around $50 million or so.
Ironically, much of this famous cyclist’s wealth is thanks to the success of a company that lets you call someone with a car when you need to get somewhere. But we’ll come back to that in a bit.
Lance Armstrong’s Net Worth
During the glory years, Armstrong was pulling in money faster than he could spend it. In November 2023, his net worth was estimated to be well over $75 million. During his retirement, he raked in income from speaking fees and other public appearances. He authored two books about his medical struggles and triumphs - the first of which was even pretty good. He was listed as co-author on a few others about training and cycling.
As of 2012, it appeared all of that was over. He wasn’t likely to go bankrupt or anything, but it’s possible he might be facing a few lifestyle adjustments if something didn’t turn around for him.
Can I Get A Lift?
Armstrong spent a little time talking to a guy named Chris Sacca who was known for his early investments in companies like Twitter, Instagram, and Kickstarter (I know - ironic, right?). Sacca was at the time excited about a new thing called “Uber” which Lance misunderstood to be another social media platform of some sort - the next Twitter, as it were. Sacca’s track record was pretty impressive in any case, and Armstrong invested $100,000 in this new thing on that basis.
As things turned out, Uber did pretty well for itself. Armstrong’s investment rapidly grew from that initial $100,000 to $25 million or so - roughly half of his total net worth as of this writing. Current estimates suggest Lance Armstrong’s net worth has remained fairly steady at around $50 million. All things considered, that’s not bad.
Who am I kidding? That’s a LOT of money. For ANYONE.
Lance Armstrong and his ex-wife Kristin Armstrong, née Richard.
Lance Armstrong has also done a much better job in recent years of staying out of the spotlight in negative ways. He’s become much more transparent about his errors and wrongdoings, and - more importantly - he’s avoided creating any new problems for himself.
This is especially impressive given that his record on relationships isn’t much smoother than his professional history. He left the mother of his three children in the late 1990s and has since dated several celebrities (including Sheryl Crow and Kate Hudson) as well as other movers-and-shakers in the world of the elite.
A Long and Winding Ride
Lance Armstrong was born in Plano, Texas, on September 18, 1971. He was a natural athlete who was running, swimming, and cycling before he hit puberty. By the age of 16 he was a professional athlete. He soon chose to focus primarily on cycling.
His early professional career wasn’t all glory and victory. While he accomplished a number of amazing things as a cyclist, he often struggled and sometimes fell far short of expectations. His performance in the 1992 Olympic time trials was underwhelming, as was his first professional race after the Olympics. In 1993, on the other hand, he rebounded with gusto, claiming top rankings in numerous international competitions and persuading many that he’d “arrived” for good this time.
For the next several years, Armstrong seemed to be on top of the competitive world. By 1996, however, he was struggling again - sometimes turning in amazing times and other times barely finishing the race at all. In October 1996, Armstrong revealed that he’d been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Tumors had spread to his lungs and other critical systems, and were soon discovered on his brain as well. It was uncertain whether or not he’d live, let alone compete again.
Lance Armstrong at Tour de France 2015.
Let that soak in for a moment
You’re one of the world’s premier athletes. Health is your brand. It’s what you do, and it’s why so many sponsors pay you to keep doing it. Then, one day, it turns out the reason you’re so tired and don’t feel very good some days is because there’s cancer all through your body and there’s a 50/50 chance you’re going to die. Soon.
I just think it’s worth putting later events in some perspective. It’s not about justifying poor choices; it’s about appreciating the impressive parts alongside our condemnation of the naughty stuff.
Thanks to aggressive chemotherapy, intense nutritional changes, and brain surgery, Armstrong was labeled cancer-free in 1997. He insisted he’d ride competitively again, but sponsors and others were understandably skeptical. The odds simply weren’t in his favor on that sort of thing. He nevertheless managed to secure a position on the United States Postal Service team (yes, that was a real thing in competitive cycling) and began peddling for a living once again.
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Tiring and Retiring
The late 1990s and early 2000s saw some of Lance’s best years of competitive riding. He placed well in numerous individual and team events before announcing his retirement in 2005. It was during this stretch that rumors began circulating that Armstrong’s inspirational story was not as pure or polished as it seemed. Accusations regarding the use of banned performance enhancing substances began surfacing. He naturally denied participating in anything illicit. Lance Armstrong’s net worth was booming thanks to not only his impressive cycling, but his inspirational story. No one wanted to believe he might not be all that he seemed.
Lance came out of retirement and returned to competitive riding in 2008. His record was mixed over the next few years. At times, he was his old amazing self. The next time out, he seemed plagued by difficulty and uncertainty. Fans never really know which Lance Armstrong to expect.
In 2010, one of Armstrong’s teammates from the Postal Service team confessed to the use of banned performance enhancers. More significantly, he insisted that he was far from alone. Doping was a regular part of competitive cycling, he said. Yes, he’d done it, but so had many others - including his teammate Lance Armstrong.
Armstrong did what most people do in these situations - strong denials with a healthy dose of being hurt and offended that anyone would even suggest such a thing! This time, however, the accusations had much greater staying power. By 2012, Lance announced he was done fighting the charges. Without admitting guilt, he took what by now seems to be the standard “out” - stepping down to focus on family, can’t focus on the task at hand with these distractions, etc. Sure, it was all a bit cliched - but far more powerful individuals than Lance Armstrong have used the same lines and gotten away with them. So why not?
Everybody’s Doping It
Armstrong was stripped of most of his titles and awards and labeled a very, very bad man by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (and yes, that’s a real thing).
The USADA released an interesting statement at the time which included this line:
The evidence shows beyond any doubt that the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.
At the risk of reading too much into it, it seems significant in retrospect that they didn’t say “the team ran a sophisticated doping program” or “the team broke with standards and expectations by using performance-enhancing drugs.” Instead, they expressed dismay at how much more sophisticated and successful it was at breaking the rules.
Compared to what? All the other systems used by teams to promote doping and rule-breaking?
While it in no way justifies individual violations of the rules, doping and other forms of cheating are so embedded in cycling culture that they’ve almost become an accepted reality of the sport. Like cutting angry promos in pro wrestling or rolling around pretending to be hurt in pro soccer, all the cool kids cheat when they ride their bikes.
Well, not all of them. There are some who remain pure and follow the rules. We call them “people we’ve never heard of because they kept getting beat by the cheaters.”
I apologize for being a bit facetious. My goal is not to act as an apologist for anyone here. It’s just that I suspect many of us can relate to feeling shot down for doing what it seemed like everyone else was doing just to keep up. Perhaps many of us have experienced at least one or two moments when maybe we could have done things better, but certainly didn’t deserve to be singled out for special condemnation.
No? Is it just me? Gosh, how embarrassing - apparently my issues are showing!
We’ll Need The Colorful Patches Back
Needless to say, big money sponsors don’t like paying athletes to be disgraced and banned from their sports. Armstrong was not only out of cycling - his main passion for most of his life - but he was without a serious source of income.
Lance Armstrong interviewed by Oprah Winfrey back in 2013.
Once again he took the approach so many others had shown to be successful. He went on Oprah and owned up to doping, and to lying. OK, granted, he phrased it a bit like a job candidate might when asked about their biggest flaw - like his desire to win was what was really being punished - but it was still a confession. Let the national healing begin.
Except that’s when the Department of Justice decided to join the U.S. Postal Service in suing Armstrong for fraud against the federal government. Their reasoning was a bit convoluted - Armstrong got paid to cycle for the feds, but broke the rules and was disqualified. He knew he was breaking the rules, therefore he intentionally cheated the U.S. government out of millions of dollars.
Lance was tired of fighting it all. He settled for $5 million in hopes he could finally move on - for real this time.
Conclusion
If we simply must form a final judgment about Lance Armstrong, it would be this: it’s complicated. His struggle with cancer is inspirational no matter what came afterward in his story. His accomplishments as a cyclist are impressive with or without the illegal supplements. Like many of us, however, he made some bad choices. Even worse, he dug in on them until the consequences could no longer be avoided.
But significantly, the story doesn’t end there. He did his best to learn from those mistakes and to own them. He consulted the experts on how to best provide for the financial futures of those in his care - and scored big as a result. He took control of his life from where he was instead of staying mired in where he wished he’d been.
You probably see where I’m going with this.
Maybe things haven’t turned out exactly as you’d hoped at this stage of your life. The fact is, we can only start with today and move forward from here. (You may remember an old adage about falling off a bike and getting right back on. Seems like an appropriate image here.)
Whether your financial decisions involve hundreds of dollars or millions, the future is not yet written. You can make things better. You can move forward. And we’re ready to help you do it.