In a private tour of his new Los Angeles mansion, the Dodgers’ All-Star shortstop goes deep on his big-league business ambitions beyond baseball—and why he wants to be a bowling kingpin.
By Jabari Young, Forbes Staff
ON a hot summer afternoon at his new $15 million contemporary mansion in a posh suburb of Los Angeles, Mookie Betts is not sitting by his large infinity pool taking in the postcard-worthy view. Rather, the 31-year-old Dodgers All-Star shortstop is hidden away in a sleek white structure across the lawn that houses his modern man cave.
Inside, Betts sits by the slick black-and-gray bowling lanes he commissioned when he bought the home earlier this year. On one side of the building, a basketball court can be converted into a pickleball court. There’s also a workout area with a treadmill, weights and a large flat-screen TV. These are the kinds of luxuries you can afford when you’re a few years into a 12-year, $365 million contract to play baseball.
“Sometimes,” Betts says of his sanctuary, “you just want to hang out, put some music on and bowl a couple of games.” But Betts, who has competed in the World Series of Bowling and has rolled several perfect games, isn’t working on his hook in here or practicing how to pick up a difficult split. He’s looking over the financial terms of his latest investment in GrowthLoop, a New York City–based software company with nearly $20 million in revenue last year that uses generative AI to aid marketers.
“I’m trying to really grasp it,” Betts tells Forbes. “But it’s hard—all the acronyms and terms.” Fortunately, he says, “Google comes in clutch.”
The same could be said of Betts, who in 2018 became the first player in baseball history to win Most Valuable Player, a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger, the batting title and a World Series in the same year.
Then again, it’s a sport he was born to play. His parents named him Markus Lynn Betts—or MLB—and despite those prophetic initials and his small frame, they encouraged him to play all sports growing up in Nashville, Tennessee. A natural competitor, Betts developed a love for the three Bs—baseball, basketball and, yes, bowling. In 2010, he was named the state’s boys’ bowler of the year, but as a star second baseman, shortstop and outfielder for John Overton High School, he was scouted by Major League teams. In 2011, the Boston Red Sox drafted him as an ama-teur, and he stormed through their Minor League system and, three years later, made his way to the Majors as the Red Sox’ starting right fielder.
Eleven years into his Cooperstown-worthy career, Betts now has two World Series rings (with the Red Sox and the Dodgers), and with Los Angeles making two record-breaking deals in December—signing 30-year-old Japa-nese phenom Shohei Ohtani to a 10-year contract and inking a 12-year deal with 25-year-old pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto—Betts could soon add a third.
“There is no way I can replicate what he does,” Betts says of the otherworldly Ohtani, who is often compared to Babe Ruth because he’s a dominant pitcher and can vie for the home run title. But MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred also knows what Betts brings to the sport. “He plays the game with a special combination of skill and joy,” he tells Forbes. “MLB is a better league for having Mookie Betts as one of our most popular stars.”
This season, Betts made the difficult switch to full-time shortstop for the Dodgers after spending the last three years in the outfield. The move is uncommon—as position players age, they typically move from the infield to the outfield—but Betts will do what’s best for the team. And being on the injured list this summer with a fractured left hand is only slowing his progression as an infielder.
“I think it’s because I’m partly lazy,” he says of the transition. “Not lazy in the work, but lazy in that I want to get to the answer as quickly as possible. I don’t like taking the long route to find out what I’m doing.”
That philosophy may need to change in his business endeavors, however, where taking the long route can often pay huge dividends.
Betts became an investor in GrowthLoop this summer after meeting the company founders in January and then flying the leadership team to Arizona during spring training to discuss how AI powers its products.
“He’s incredibly business-savvy,” GrowthLoop co-CEO Chris Sell says of Betts. “He learns so quickly.”
Betts also cofounded One Marketing Group in 2020, a Los Angeles–based media company that co-produces his podcast, On Base with Mookie Betts, and he co-owns a juicing company, Honee, with his wife, Brianna, whom he met in middle school. “I’m just there to support her,” he says.
And, of course, bowling is a part of Betts’ vision for the future. He also owns Lanes Trains and Automobiles, a family-friendly bowling center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee—Forbes estimates it had revenue of $3 million last year—that he wants to expand throughout the country. “We’re in the process of a name change now,” he says.
Betts admits he’s still learning the business side of bowling, a $3.8 billion industry in the United States, and he knows it will take time to master it as long as baseball is his primary focus. In the meantime, he’s collecting advice from local billionaires Magic Johnson and LeBron James as he establishes his own portfolio. Betts dreams of building a “dynamic” empire, one that emulates his baseball talents.
That means “being able to shift and move and change directions,” he says, “being able to change and adapt to whoever I am.” Eventually, he predicts, he’ll be a full-time bowling kingpin.
“You will see a chain of bowling alleys somewhere,” Betts says as he looks around his kegler’s paradise. “That’s definitely going to happen.”
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