Tom Ricketts Net Worth: Estimated Wealth and How the Cubs Chairman Built It
Tom Ricketts is an American businessman best known as the chairman of the Chicago Cubs. He led the Ricketts family’s bid to acquire a controlling stake in the franchise in 2009 and has remained the team’s top public-facing owner. He has also been linked to the finance world through executive leadership at Incapital, and the broader Ricketts family fortune is commonly traced back to TD Ameritrade, the brokerage business founded by his father, Joe Ricketts.
Estimated Net Worth
Estimated net worth (Tom Ricketts individually): about $900 million.
It’s important to separate Tom Ricketts’ personal estimate from the wealth often attributed to the “Ricketts family” as a whole. Some business outlets and sports finance lists attach multi-billion-dollar figures to the family overall, because they are counting shared assets, ownership structures, and the combined value of the Cubs and other holdings. That doesn’t necessarily mean Tom himself personally controls that entire amount. It usually reflects a family-wide picture rather than one person’s share.
Net Worth Breakdown: Where Tom Ricketts’ Money Likely Comes From
1) Chicago Cubs ownership value
The clearest source of Tom Ricketts’ wealth is equity tied to the Chicago Cubs. Owning a major sports franchise is less like holding a typical business and more like holding a rare asset that tends to appreciate over time. MLB franchise values have climbed significantly over the last decade-plus, and that rise in valuation is one of the main reasons ownership groups appear dramatically wealthier over time, even if day-to-day profits aren’t always the headline.
This also explains why outsiders struggle to pin down a precise personal net worth figure. The Cubs are held through family ownership structures, so “the Cubs value” is effectively shared. Public estimates generally make assumptions about ownership allocation and then attach a personal figure to Tom based on his leadership role and presumed share.
2) Family wealth rooted in TD Ameritrade’s legacy
A large portion of the Ricketts family’s financial foundation is tied to the success of TD Ameritrade, which is commonly associated with Joe Ricketts. Even though company ownership and corporate structure have evolved over time, the family’s wealth is widely described as originating from that brokerage success. In practical terms, this is the “capital base” that helped make the Cubs purchase possible and explains why the family is often described as having multi-billion-dollar wealth.
When you see huge “Ricketts family net worth” figures, they typically reflect a blend of legacy brokerage wealth, Cubs equity, and other investments, not simply baseball operations.
3) Finance-industry earnings and executive leadership
Tom Ricketts has been connected to executive leadership in finance through roles such as chairman at Incapital. High-level finance positions can be lucrative over time through salary, bonuses, incentives, and investment-related upside. In most public net worth discussions, though, this category is usually considered secondary compared to the scale of wealth tied to sports franchise ownership.
Still, long-term executive income can help explain how someone grows wealth steadily even beyond ownership appreciation.
4) The business ecosystem around Wrigley Field
Modern MLB ownership isn’t only about ticket sales and TV rights. It increasingly includes development and business activity surrounding the stadium—restaurants, entertainment districts, events, and partnerships that expand revenue beyond the ballpark. Under the Ricketts family, the Cubs’ ownership era has been associated with significant investment around Wrigley Field, and those kinds of developments can increase the long-term value of the broader ownership ecosystem.
Even if you can’t assign a neat public dollar amount to every project, the concept is simple: the franchise can act as a hub that supports multiple adjacent businesses, which can raise overall asset value over time.
5) Why different sources give different numbers
Net worth estimates vary for Tom Ricketts mainly because the biggest variables are private. The public usually doesn’t know exact ownership percentages, how assets are held across trusts, what private investments exist, or how wealth is allocated between different family members. That’s why some sources focus on Tom as an individual and land around $900 million, while others focus on the family group and report much larger totals.
The safest way to interpret the numbers is that Tom Ricketts is commonly estimated as a near-billionaire individually, while the Ricketts family as a whole is frequently described as being worth several billions depending on the source and what assets they include.
Featured Image Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschlossberg/2025/06/15/cubs-owner-tom-ricketts-keeps-wrigley-field-family-friendly/
