What is Mat Fraser's Net Worth?
Mat Fraser is a retired professional CrossFit athlete who has a net worth of $7 million. Mat Fraser competed from 2014 to 2020. During that time, he became the first person ever to win five CrossFit Games titles, doing so in consecutive years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, making him the most dominant individual male athlete in the sport's history. He was the second person ever to win four consecutive CrossFit Games titles (2016 – 2019), Rich Froning Jr. was the first. Earlier in his career, Fraser was a competitive weightlifter.
Early Life and Education
Mat Fraser was born on January 25, 1990 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada to Olympic figure skaters Candace Jones and Don Fraser. He has a brother named Jesse. When he was young, the family moved to Colchester, Vermont. Fraser demonstrated his athletic ability from an early age, learning to swim when he was only a year old and learning to water-ski at 18 months. In middle school, he played football and took up weightlifting. Fraser graduated from Colchester High School, and later attended Northern Michigan University and the University of Vermont.
Weightlifting Career
Fraser won his first weightlifting national title when he was just 13. After graduating from high school, he began training full-time as a weightlifter at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. A few weeks before he was to compete in the Junior World Weightlifting Championship in Romania in 2009, he severely injured his back. Fraser still competed, but upon returning home found that he had suffered two breaks in his lumbar vertebrae, requiring him to wear a plastic brace on his torso for four months. Because spinal fusion surgery would have ended his athletic career, he subsequently chose to undergo an experimental surgery. Following his rehabilitation, Fraser competed in two American Weightlifting Opens. In 2012, he competed at the National Championships.
CrossFit Beginnings
While still competing in weightlifting, Fraser started training in a CrossFit gym. Soon, he was introduced to the sport of CrossFit and encouraged to compete in events. Starting off with local competitions, Fraser finished fifth in the CrossFit North East Regionals in 2014. He also competed as part of a team for a couple of years, first with the New York Rhinos in 2014 and then with the Built By Bergeron in 2015. In his first appearance at the CrossFit Games, Fraser came in second place behind Rich Froning. When Froning retired from individual competitions in 2015, Fraser was considered the frontrunner to win the 2015 CrossFit Games. However, he ultimately came in second again, this time to Ben Smith.
DoD photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dominique A. Pineiro/creative commons
CrossFit Champion
Fraser began his unprecedented CrossFit championship run at the 2016 CrossFit Games. After winning the 7k Ranch Trail Run and coming in second in seven other events, he emerged as the victor of the competition, winning by 197 points over reigning titleholder Ben Smith. It was the biggest margin of victory in the history of the CrossFit Games at that time. Fraser continued his dominance at the 2017 Games, winning four events and breaking his own margin-of-victory record by beating second-place finisher Brent Fikowski by 216 points. He broke his own record yet again at the 2018 CrossFit Games, winning by 220 points over Patrick Vellner. Although he struggled somewhat in the early events of the 2019 Games, Fraser came back strong to claim his fourth consecutive title.
At the 2020 CrossFit Games, which were heavily modified due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fraser dominated the reduced field of athletes by winning a total of 14 events and shattering the margin-of-victory record by defeating runner-up Samuel Kwant by a whopping 545 points. This made him the first athlete ever to win five CrossFit Games titles, which he managed to do in consecutive years. In early 2021, Fraser announced on Instagram that he had retired from competitive CrossFit.
Post-CrossFit
Following his retirement from competitive CrossFit, Fraser released a training program entitled "Hard Work Pays Off." Additionally, he started training and offering individual coaching to other CrossFit athletes, including Justin Medeiros and Mal O'Brien. Fraser also partnered with the filmmakers known as Buttery Bros to announce the launch of the supplement company Podium Nutrition.
Personal Life
Due to a childhood ear infection, Fraser is deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other. He abstains from alcohol due to drinking problems he had as a teenager. On his left arm, Fraser has a tattoo of the Serenity Prayer, which was inked by his brother Jesse.
Fraser lives with his girlfriend Sammy Moniz, creator of the cooking website Feeding the Frasers. On the site, she posts about food she makes for Fraser.
[The photo of Mat Fraser seen on this page is a DoD photo taken by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dominique A. Pineiro and licensed via creative commons.]
