Hello Aluxers, thanks for joining us again!  Today we look at a man with the reputation of a colossal giant for his achievements as a professional sportsman and a businessman.  Ion Tiriac (Ee-on tsiri-ack) was born in Brasov, Romania on May 9th, 1939.  He has always been highly competitive and starred in the Romanian ice hockey team at the 1964 Olympics.  In 1968 he became a pro tennis player. His greatest achievement in the sport was winning the French Open doubles tournament in 1970.  His record as a singles player was 166 wins and 177 losses. Despite the lack of major success in the sport, he is the richest man to have ever played professional tennis, ranking 1686th on the 2017 Forbes rich list.  If that isn’t an intriguing enough bio for you to want to watch on, then I don’t know what would be! So let’s just jump straight in with fact no. 1.

Number 1: Ion Tiriac’s first achievement was to survive World War 2

The odds could not have been stacked against Ion much more heavily when he was born 4 months before the outbreak of World War 2. Between 1943 and 1947, Romania had its highest infant mortality rate of the entire 20th century.  3 in every 100 Romanians died during the war, so it was an achievement in itself that he made it through his childhood years.

Number 2: Ion’s first major successes in sport came as a coach and manager.

After ion retired, he became the full time coach of compatriot Ilie Nastase (Ill-Ee Nar-Star-See).  Under Ion’s tutelage, Nastase became world no.1, winning over a hundred professional tournaments along the way.  This raised Ion’s reputation as a coach astoundingly and he went on to train Mary Joe Fernandez, Guillermo Vilas, Marat Safin, Steffi Graf and Goran Ivanisevic.  Coaching such successful players with huge international reputations made him realize the potential for sports personalities to make a lot of money. This laid the foundations of his business career.

Number 3: Ion made millions managing Boris Becker

In 1984, Tiriac began managing the career of Boris Becker rather than personally coaching him.  During this period, Becker became an internationally recognized heart throb whilst dominating the sport of tennis.  Tiriac negotiated all of his sponsorship deals, earning him the most lucrative contracts in the history of the sport.  One of Becker’s sponsors was Lotto. In 1993, Tiriac made sure that 30 tennis shirts with the Lotto logo were available during the Wimbledon tournament for Becker to wear. This deal alone earned the pair over $1 million dollars.

Number 4: Ion turned millions into billions when the Soviet Union fell.

The staggering wealth that Ion has managed to accumulate today is a result of his incredible foresight.  In 1990, he sensed that the Soviet Union would soon collapse and, with it, communist regulations on banking would cease to exist in Romania.  He founded Banca Tiriac, the first privately owned bank in Romania since the 1930s. The bank evolved into UniCredit Tiriac before just being called UniCredit.  It is now one of the largest banks in Romania and easily the largest Romanian owned banks in the country. The majority of his wealth today is a result of investing the millions he earned from the sports industry so wisely.

Number 5: Tiriac’s Net Worth is over $2 billion dollars

Thanks to such smart investment and the creation of Tiriac Holdings, Ion is now worth over $2 billion dollars. Tiriac Holdings is the company by which Ion is able to operate his businesses and invest in others.  It is one of the largest and richest companies in Romania employing over 2,000 people. It spans across 40 different businesses including Tiriac Auto, Tiriac Imobiliaire, Tiriac Air, Tiriac Leasing and Tiriac Travel.  At the age of 79, Ion has begun to take a back seat in operations and his son, Alexander Ion Tiriac makes most of the executive decisions. No doubt, he still tries to think like his father as much as possible before making any moves.

Number 6: By 1993 Tiriac’s relationship with Boris Becker had cooled.

When Boris Becker was 17, Tiriac promised that he would drop all other business and focus on transforming Becker into an international superstar. Tiriac would spend up to 20 hours a week mentoring his young protege. However, by Wimbledon of 1993 things had changed substantially.  Tiriac said, “at 17, 18, Boris needed me 20 hours a week, he needs me two hours a week right now (1993)".  Becker had fallen into what was described at the time as a malaise. He read the existential work of writers such as Confucius (Con-Few-Shus) and Goethe (Gott) and contemplated the point of tennis or life in general.  In today’s modern society we might recognize this as depression rather than calling it ‘a malaise’.  Nonetheless, it seemed that the more Becker distanced himself from Tiriac’s shrewd advice, the more erratic his life became. Perhaps unsympathetically Ion explained Boris would never have an even career because “his tennis always came second to his personality.”

Number 7: Ion Tiriac ate a champagne glass without bleeding.

Everyone on the pro tennis circuit has a story about Ion during his time as a professional.  In 1987, during an interview with Sports Illustrated, Rod Laver said that he was out to dinner one evening with some of the other players after a tournament.  Ion picked up a champagne glass from the table and ate it without bleeding. Rod said it was one of the most astonishing things he had ever seen. Ion always managed to give off the impression that he was out of this world even if he was never the best player on the court.

Number 8: Ion has been accused of being a sexist for his comments about Women’s tennis.

Ion has never been a man to bite his lip or hold back his opinions. In 2016, he voiced his point of view about female tennis players being given the same prize money as men.  Since 2009 this has been standard for most major tournaments. Ion himself owns the Madrid open where that is also the case. However, he says that, looking at the statistics for his tournament, women getting the same prize money as men just does not add up financially.  He believes that 75% of revenue is generated from the men’s tournament and it’s only fair that the prize money should reflect that. The internet backlash has been no less than expected. One person commented, “just another old man blurting out a sexist opinion.”

Number 9: Ion paid back 100 dollars of damage done to an ice rink in 1968.

When Ion had just turned pro, he was playing at a tournament in England where a court had been set up in an ice skating arena; during a match, Tiriac got angry and slammed a ball at the roof, dislodging some paneling.  When one of the organizers complained to him that it would cost over £100 pounds to repair he said nothing and just looked back blankly. However, once the competition was over, the organizers and players were having a party at the bar overlooking the rink.  Workers were dismantling the stage. Tiriac elegantly skated over and began to help loading items onto the truck. This continued for over an hour before Ion joined the other players for the party. He turned to the organizer, Mr Dewars, and said, “I hope that makes up for the 100 pounds I cost you."

Number 10: Ion has 415 vehicles.

Ion has one of the largest collections of vintage cars on the planet. In total he owns 415 vehicles and counting.  The oldest is a Huntu 3 and a half quadricycle made in 1899. Most of his vintage cars can be seen on exhibition in his home country of Romania.  The exhibition spans over 4,300 square meters and includes cars like a LaFerrari and a Rolls Royce Phantom.

If you like expensive cars, then you might like to watch our top 10 most expensive SUVs video by clicking the link in the top right corner!

Number 11: In 2009 Tiriac Holdings successfully rebranded their businesses.

After the financial crisis that ensued in 2009, Tiriac Holdings decided they needed to rebrand themselves in order to keep up with the times and appeal to a wider audience.  All of their businesses would have the name in capital letters and the same font. Above the name would be the logo for Tiriac Holdings. The original logo, which remains the symbol of Tiriac Holdings, is the shape of a shield with four sections: a lion, a star, a bee and a tower.  The lion stands for power and integrity, the bee for endurance, the star for ambition and the tower for stability. The rebranding changed the logos of Tiriac’s subsidiary businesses with more up to date branding. The rebranding was an award winning success which contributed to a 15% increase in sales over the subsequent two years.

Number 12: Tiriac says that he would be happy to help Boris Becker out of bankruptcy.

Despite all the money he gained thanks to the lucrative deals made by his manager, in 2017 Boris Becker was declared bankrupt. Becker had made some bad investments with his career earnings.  As a result, a British judge declared him bankrupt because he was deemed to owe a business partner $36.5 million dollars. Tiriac said, “He is part of my life, nobody can take it from me. If he needs ten million for a goal, I'll give it to him. Boris has had so much will, much more than other tennis players, that made him big, and that broke him."

Number 13: Tiriac can speak 6 languages.

Tiriac can speak Russian, English, French, German, Hungarian and Spanish fluently.  However, those that know him well say that he enjoys playing the idiot. When asked about his proficiency for languages, he said that he was very smart because he learned to say “I surrender” in six different languages.  It’s this kind of shrewd, ironic modesty that makes him such an enigmatic character and great businessman.

Number 14: Tiriac was the only player to lose by default in a Davis Cup match.

In 1969, the U.S played Romania in the final of the Davis cup and won with a couple of games to spare.  One of the remaining games was between Arthur Ashe and Ion Tiriac. The result didn’t matter but Tiriac still didn’t want to lose.  When it looked as if defeat was going to be a distinct possibility, he began stalling whenever he saw the opportunity. President Nixon had invited all the players to the White House the next day so the match had to be concluded that evening. Tiriac would complain of cramp, spend an inordinate amount of time bouncing the ball before serves and generally taking things slow. He knew that if he made it to dark and the result had not been settled then the match would go down as a draw and be struck from the records.  However, the umpire knew exactly what Ion was doing and defaulted him, giving victory to Ashe. To this day, he is the only player to lose by default in a Davis Cup match.

Number 15: Tiriac trail blazed the way for Eastern European businessmen.

The ex-professional sportsman with the second highest net worth after Ion Tiriac is Michael Jordan. He is believed to be worth $1 billion dollars and it’s estimated that he still makes around $214,000 dollars an hour without lifting a finger.  Let’s put that into perspective: Ion Tiriac’s net worth is double that of Michael Jordan’s at $2 billion dollars.

Tiriac’s path to mega wealth is so revolutionary because it was borne out of the fact that he saw an opportunity, laid down all his earnings as a player, coach and manager and gambled big.  The collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent deterioration of communist ideas about government was an uncertain time. However, Tiriac had the intelligence and bravery to make the most out of the changes and now sits pretty atop an empire that few can rival.

That wraps up our list of the 15 things you didn’t know about Ion Tiriac. Now that you’ve learned more about the successful athlete and businessman, we’d like to know: What current athlete do you think will be able to become a billionaire in the future after they’ve retired from their sport? Let us know what you think in the comments.

And thank you all so much for watching to the end.  It’s you, our wonderful viewers that make doing these videos so awesome.  We hope you enjoyed it. And as a special treat, here’s your bonus fact.

Number 16: Tiriac’s favourite player to coach was Guillermo Vilas; his least favourite was Henri Laconte.

In 1977, under the tutelage of Tiriac, Vilas won the French and U.S open.  The two travelled the world together for the next 8 years. To this day, Tiriac says that this was one of the greatest friendships he has experienced in his life.  During this period he also coached Henri Laconte but found his character wild and erratic. Tiriac said that Vilas was a “President” of the sport; always polite and modest. Laconte was an “idiot”; always belligerent and unruly.