Curtis Martin Net Worth

What Is Curtis Martin's Net Worth and Career Earnings?

Curtis Martin is a retired American professional football player and businessman who has a net worth of $18 million.

Curtis Martin is considered one of the greatest running backs in NFL history despite famously admitting that he never particularly liked football. Martin played 11 NFL seasons with the New England Patriots and New York Jets, rushing for 14,101 yards and scoring 100 total touchdowns. He became one of only two players, along with Barry Sanders, to begin an NFL career with ten consecutive 1,000-yard rushing seasons. Martin made five Pro Bowls, won the 2004 NFL rushing title at age 31, and retired as the fourth-leading rusher in league history. Subsequent players have pushed him down the rankings, but his career total remains among the highest ever recorded.

During his NFL career, Martin earned $46.9 million in salary and bonuses. His biggest contract was a six-year, $36 million deal with the Jets in 1998, followed by a six-year, $31.2 million extension in 2002. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2012, and the Jets retired his #28 that same year. Since retiring, Martin has focused heavily on philanthropy and investing. He founded the investment platform Ludis and played a significant role in assembling one of the private-equity groups approved to invest in NFL franchises after the league opened team ownership to institutional capital.

Early Life

Curtis James Martin Jr. was born on May 1, 1973, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was raised primarily by his mother, Rochella Dixon, after his father left the family when Curtis was five.

Martin's childhood was extremely difficult. His father struggled with drugs and alcohol and physically abused his mother. Martin later described witnessing horrific violence against her while he was still a small child.

Violence outside the home was also common. Martin grew up in several Pittsburgh neighborhoods where shootings, drugs, and crime were part of everyday life. His grandmother was murdered, and Martin has recalled an incident when he was 15 in which someone placed a loaded gun against his head and pulled the trigger repeatedly, but the weapon failed to fire.

His mother worked multiple jobs to support the family and became determined to keep her son occupied and away from trouble.

Ironically, that is how one of the greatest running backs in NFL history began playing football.

He Didn't Want to Play Football

Martin did not grow up dreaming about becoming an NFL star. In fact, he has repeatedly said that he did not particularly enjoy football.

When Martin was a student at Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh, his mother insisted that he participate in an extracurricular activity so he would spend less time in their dangerous neighborhood. He could join the band, sing in the choir, or play a sport.

Martin chose football.

He did not begin playing organized football until his senior year of high school. Despite his lack of experience, he rushed for 1,705 yards and 20 touchdowns, earned All-State honors, and was named Pittsburgh City League Player of the Year.

College recruiters suddenly began calling.

Martin chose to remain close to home and attend the University of Pittsburgh.

University of Pittsburgh

Martin gradually developed into one of Pitt's best offensive players.

He rushed for 556 yards as a freshman and 730 yards as a sophomore before breaking out with 1,075 rushing yards during his junior season. He also caught 33 passes for 249 yards.

Entering his senior year, Martin was viewed as a potential Heisman Trophy candidate. He opened the season with a spectacular 251-yard rushing performance against Texas.

Then his season essentially ended.

Martin suffered a severe ankle injury in Pitt's second game and finished his senior season with only 282 rushing yards.

The injury damaged his NFL draft stock. Rather than return to college for another year, Martin entered the 1995 NFL Draft.

New England Patriots

The New England Patriots selected Martin with the 74th overall pick in the third round of the 1995 NFL Draft.

The team's head coach was Bill Parcells, who would become one of the most important figures in Martin's career.

Martin's initial three-year rookie contract was worth just under $900,000.

Even after being drafted, Martin was not particularly excited about professional football. He later recalled hanging up the phone with Parcells and telling the people around him that he did not want to play in the NFL.

His pastor helped change his perspective. Rather than treating football as the purpose of his life, Martin began viewing it as a vehicle that could provide the resources and platform to help other people.

That change in mindset worked.

Martin rushed for 102 yards in his NFL debut, becoming the first Patriots player to rush for 100 yards in his first professional game.

He finished his rookie season with 1,487 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns, led the AFC in rushing, made the Pro Bowl, and won NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Martin rushed for another 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns in 1996 as the Patriots advanced to Super Bowl XXXI. New England ultimately lost to the Green Bay Packers.

He followed with 1,160 yards in 1997 despite missing three games.

After only three seasons, Martin had rushed for 3,799 yards and had never finished below 1,000 yards.

$36 Million New York Jets Contract

Martin became a restricted free agent following the 1997 season.

By then, Bill Parcells had left New England and become head coach of the New York Jets. Parcells wanted his former running back with him in New York.

In March 1998, Martin signed a six-year, $36 million offer sheet with the Jets.

The contract was enormous for a running back at the time and was structured in a way that made it especially difficult for New England to match. The Patriots ultimately declined to do so and received first- and third-round draft picks as compensation.

Martin immediately became the centerpiece of the Jets' offense.

He rushed for 1,287 yards during his first season in New York as the Jets advanced to the AFC Championship Game. He followed with 1,464 yards in 1999 and another 1,204 yards in 2000.

In 2001, at age 28, Martin rushed for 1,513 yards and ten touchdowns.

$31.2 Million Contract Extension

In 2002, the Jets signed Martin to a new six-year contract extension worth $31.2 million.

The deal included $10 million in guarantees. Martin received $13.5 million in cash compensation during the 2002 season alone, the biggest single-year payday of his career.

He rewarded the Jets with remarkable consistency.

Martin rushed for 1,094 yards in 2002 and 1,308 yards in 2003, extending his streak of 1,000-yard seasons to nine.

Then, at an age when most running backs are already declining, he produced the best season of his career.

2004 Rushing Title

Martin entered the 2004 season at age 31.

He proceeded to rush for a career-high 1,697 yards and 12 touchdowns.

The performance gave Martin his first NFL rushing title and earned him First-Team All-Pro honors. He edged Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander by a single yard for the rushing crown.

It was Martin's tenth consecutive season with at least 1,000 rushing yards.

Only Barry Sanders had also begun an NFL career with ten straight 1,000-yard seasons.

Martin's remarkable run finally ended in 2005 when a knee injury limited him to 735 yards in 12 games. The injury ultimately ended his playing career.

He did not play during the 2006 season and officially announced his retirement in July 2007.

Robin Marchant/ Getty Images

Career Earnings

Curtis Martin earned $46,882,633 in NFL salary and bonuses during his career.

His earnings broke down into roughly:

New England Patriots: $897,000

New York Jets: $46 million

His 1998 Jets agreement was originally worth $36 million over six years. Martin earned more than $21 million before the deal was restructured.

His 2002 extension was worth $31.2 million over six years, and he ultimately collected more than $24 million under that agreement.

Martin's highest-earning season was 2002, when he collected $13.5 million.

For comparison, Martin's $36 million Jets contract was one of the NFL's most significant running-back deals when he signed it. Running-back salaries would rise considerably in later decades, but Martin was among the players who helped establish the position as one worthy of major long-term contracts.

Career Statistics

Martin finished his NFL career with 14,101 rushing yards on 3,518 carries, an average of four yards per attempt.

He scored 90 rushing touchdowns.

Martin was also an effective receiver out of the backfield, catching 484 passes for 3,329 yards and ten touchdowns.

That gave him 100 total touchdowns and more than 17,000 yards from scrimmage during his career.

He was selected to five Pro Bowls and was named First-Team All-Pro in 2004.

When Martin retired, his 14,101 rushing yards ranked fourth in NFL history, behind only Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton, and Barry Sanders.

Hall of Fame

Martin was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2012.

His induction speech became almost as famous as his playing career.

Rather than spending most of the speech recounting football accomplishments, Martin spoke about his childhood, his mother's abuse, his father's addiction, the violence he witnessed growing up, and his lack of passion for football.

He explained that he eventually came to see the NFL as a tool that allowed him to fulfill his larger purpose of helping other people.

Martin also spoke emotionally about his mother, whom he described as the strongest person he knew.

A little more than a month after his Hall of Fame induction, the New York Jets retired Martin's #28 jersey. He joined a small group of Jets players to receive the honor.

Charity

Philanthropy was not something Martin began after becoming wealthy. He incorporated it into his finances almost immediately after entering the NFL.

During his rookie season, Martin created the Curtis Martin Job Foundation.

He has said that he routinely dedicated 12% to 15% of his NFL earnings to charitable work.

The foundation has supported single mothers, children's organizations, people with disabilities, low-income families, and housing initiatives. Martin has frequently explained that the mission reflects his own upbringing with a single mother who worked multiple jobs to support him.

He has also funded projects in Pittsburgh. In 2018, Martin helped support a $14 million effort to renovate an athletic complex in the neighborhood where he grew up, with the goal of giving children a safe place to play.

In 2019, Martin received the Walter Camp Football Foundation's Man of the Year Award in recognition of his charitable and community work.

Business Career and NFL Ownership Ambitions

Martin began talking about becoming an NFL owner almost immediately after retiring.

At his 2007 retirement press conference, he explained that while fans had viewed him as a low-profile player, he had always envisioned eventually becoming a high-profile owner.

It took nearly two decades for the league's ownership structure to begin moving in his direction.

Martin founded an investment platform called Ludis. In 2024, the NFL made the historic decision to allow select private-equity groups to purchase minority stakes in franchises for the first time.

Ludis was included in one of the small number of investment groups approved by the league. Martin played a central role in bringing together a consortium that initially included Blackstone, Carlyle, CVC, and Dynasty Equity.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell specifically credited Martin with helping assemble the group and with promoting opportunities for people of color to participate in NFL ownership.

The consortium later evolved, with Blackstone and CVC departing. Carlyle, Dynasty Equity, and Ludis remained part of the NFL's approved investment group, with Martin also serving as a strategic adviser to the Carlyle-Dynasty partnership.

The effort brought Martin substantially closer to the NFL ownership business he had envisioned when he retired.

Personal Life

Martin became a Christian when he was 20 years old, and his faith became central to the way he approached both football and philanthropy. He wore #28 during his NFL career in reference to Deuteronomy 28.

Martin also eventually reconciled with his father. On Father's Day in 1998, Curtis and his mother helped provide his father with a furnished condominium as part of rebuilding their relationship. His father had become sober after undergoing treatment for drug and alcohol addiction and died of cancer in 2009.

In 2010, Martin married his longtime girlfriend, Carolina Williams, at Oheka Castle on Long Island. The couple have two daughters.

Martin has remained closely connected with the Jets and the Pro Football Hall of Fame since retiring, but much of his post-playing career has focused on business, investing, charitable work, and his longstanding goal of expanding access to NFL ownership.

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