Buzz Bissinger Net Worth

What Is Buzz Bissinger's Net Worth?

Buzz Bissinger is an American journalist and author who has a net worth of $10 million. Buzz Bissinger is a Pulitzer Prize winner who is best known for writing the #1 New York Times bestseller "Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, a Dream" (1990), which was turned into both a movie and a television series. Bissinger graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and was an editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting while writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1987. Bissinger's article "Shattered Glass" was published by Vanity Fair magazine in 1998 and was adapted into a film in 2003. His work has also appeared in The New York Times and Sports Illustrated. Buzz's best-known work, 1990's "Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, a Dream," is about the football team of Permian High School in Odessa, Texas. Bissinger has also published the books "A Prayer for the City" (1998), "Three Nights in August" (2005), "Shooting Stars" (co-written with LeBron James, 2009), "After Friday Night Lights" (2012), "Father's Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son" (2012), and "The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II" (2022). In 2019, he was the subject of the HBO documentary "Buzz."

Early Life

Buzz Bissinger was born Harry Gerard Bissinger III on November 1, 1954, in New York City. His mother, Eleanor Lebenthal Bissinger, was a relative of the family that founded Wall Street's Lebenthal Fund, and his father, Harry Gerard Bissinger II, served as the president of Lebenthal & Company, a municipal bond firm. Peter Berg, the director of the "Friday Night Lights" film, is Buzz's cousin. After graduating from Phillips Academy in 1972, Bissinger earned his college degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976. As a college student, he worked for The Daily Pennsylvanian as a sports and opinion editor.

Journalism

While writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1987, Bissinger won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a story he wrote about corruption in Philadelphia's court system. His 1998 Vanity Fair article "Shattered Glass," an exposé of New Republic writer Stephen Glass' career, was adapted into a 2003 film starring Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloë Sevigny, and Rosario Dawson. Buzz's 2007 Vanity Fair article "Gone with the Wind" was optioned by Universal Pictures; the article was about Barbaro, the winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby. In 2015, Bissinger wrote an 11,000-word Vanity Fair cover story about the transition of Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner and had exclusive access to the Olympic gold medalist/reality television personality before and after her cosmetic surgery. He has also written for Sports Illustrated, and he penned an online sports column, "The Throwback," for The New York Times. Buzz was a columnist for The Daily Beast as well.

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Books

In 1990, Bissinger published his first book, "Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, a Dream," which is about the Permian High School football team in Odessa, Texas. The book inspired the 1993 NBC drama "Against the Grain," and it was adapted into the 2004 film "Friday Night Lights" as well as the NBC series of the same name, which aired from 2006 to 2011. The "Friday Night Lights" series won a Peabody Award for Broadcast Excellence in 2007 and earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series in 2011. Sports Illustrated ranked the book #4 on its list of the 100 best books about sports. In 1998, Buzz released his second book, "A Prayer for the City," which is described as the "true epic of Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, an utterly unique, unorthodox and idiosyncratic leader who will do anything to save his city." Bissinger's next book was 2005's "Three Nights in August," in which he "captures the strategic and emotional complexities of baseball's quintessential form, the three-game series," focusing on a 2003 series between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals.

Buzz collaborated with basketball superstar LeBron James on the 2009 book "Shooting Stars" (also known as "LeBron's Dream Team: How Four Friends and I Brought a Championship Home"). The book was adapted into the 2023 Peacock movie " Shooting Stars." In 2012, Bissinger published the "Friday Night Lights" sequel "After Friday Night Lights," which is about his relationship with one of the team's players, James "Boobie" Miles. That year, Buzz also released "Father's Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son," a memoir about a cross-country road trip he took with his son Zach, who is an autistic savant. In 2022, Bissinger released the book "The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II," which won the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award.

Personal Life

Buzz was married to Debrah Stone from 1980 to 1983, and they welcomed twin sons together. He also had a son with his second wife, Sarah Macdonald, who he was married to from 1985 to 1992. Bissinger has been married to Lisa C. Smith since November 2003. He has said that he has questioned his sexuality and gender preference. Buzz has sought therapy for his addiction to shopping and sex, and between 2010 and 2012, he spent more than $600,000 on designer clothes. In late 2014, he listed around 150 items from his wardrobe on eBay.

Awards and Nominations

According to his official website, "Buzz is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Livingston Award, the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award and the National Headliners Award, among others. He also was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University." In 2013, he received an honorary degree from Philadelphia's Drexel University. In 2005, Bissinger earned a USC Scripter Award nomination for the film "Friday Nights Lights" (shared with Peter Berg and David Aaron Cohen). In 2011, the "Friday Night Lights" TV show received an Online Film & Television Association Award nomination for Best Writing in a Drama Series.

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