I’m a soccer owner who grew up poor and was selling golf balls when I was six. Now I’m worth billions and I’m working with J-Lo

KEVIN NAGLE grew up poor and started selling golf balls at the age of six.

Now he is a multi-billionaire who works with Jennifer Lopez and Shaquille O’Neal.

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And in his latest venture, the American has become the owner of an English football club.

Nagle, 68, was born in Minnesota but grew up in California with his two older sisters and their single mother.

The family struggled financially, lived in constant poverty and was visited by debt collectors, with the constant and real threat of a power outage or even eviction.

And at the age of six, he showed his business acumen with a brilliant idea for his first job.

Nagle found lost golf balls, cleaned them and then sold them to players near the end of their rounds – but initially missed sales on the 18th hole for the first six weeks before moving to the 14th and 15th tees.

The roughly $4 he earned each day went directly to his mother.

Nagle – an accomplished baseball player until a horrific injury left him losing confidence and a highly successful wrestler – had a variety of other jobs in his youth.

This included gardening, cooking burgers, washing dishes, bartending and even filling up vehicles with gas.

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He got his first job in finance in 1980 at the Los Angeles-based investment company EF Hutton – but found it “boring”.

But the entrepreneur soon realized there was a lot of money to be made in the healthcare industry and eventually founded his own pharmaceutical company, which was sold for £1.8 billion.

Nagle also owns The Nagle Company – a real estate company with retail, entertainment, office and residential real estate projects – as well as various venture capital firms.

But he earned a large part of his billions from sport.

He said Comstock’s Magazine: “We concluded that the fundamentals of success are the same whether you play a team sport or run a business – it is the obsession for perfection.”

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Father-of-two Nagle was a major investor in NBA team Sacramento Kings and sold his shares for a reported £6.7 billion.

He is also the CEO and chairman of Sacramento Republic FC and is desperately trying to get them into the MLS.

And in 2017, the businessman raised money to invest in the company NRG Esports along with J-Lo, O’Neal, Alex Rodriguez, Marshawn Lynch and Michael Strahan.

But in 2023, the philanthropist – whose total value is unclear – expanded his influence across the pond and made his first big move into the UK market when he bought Championship club Huddersfield Town from Dean Hoyle.

The takeover was completed in June 2023 and Nagle said: “I am extremely honored and delighted to be the new administrator of Huddersfield Town.”

“A special thank you to the city’s wonderful supporters who have also been so supportive and patient. I know how much they care about this club and I have no intention of letting them down.

And he hopes he can repeat his success at the John Smith’s Stadium by teaming up with Neil Warnock to guide the Terriers back to the Premier League.

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