However, most athletes, like the chap in this article, simply go from huge earnings to very little once they leave. Yet, their lifestyles are still largely the same! For the vast majority of athletes within 2 years they are in big trouble - now, assuming they are married (and like many, married for looks) that's around when divorces are touching down. Some also have child support payments that they never took the time to have adjusted downwards once they left sports. With bad financial management (with most investing in risky 'sexy' investments like PE rather than 'boring' bonds) and bad managers (mostly friends and family) these guys really have nothing left.
As someone in the documentary said, it's living a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. It is hard to notice the funding gap when the big money is coming in, but once the spigot is turned off it becomes quickly apparent (hmmm ...I just realized this could apply to the US economy).
Finally, considering that a lot of them started getting crazy money in their late teens/early twenties, with no personal financial skills (for pizza money let alone multi million dollar deals), it is easy to see how they end up blowing their futures. Many of them, like college students who think credit cards are 'free money,' forget (or don't realize) that their earnings are to last a lifetime (unless like Jordan or Lebron they don't have to). Thus, rather than limiting spending to 'only' 300,000 per year, they spend 3 million. Three to five years later, especially after adding bad investments, they money is depleted, if not gone.
The only athletes who are fortunate not to fall into this trap are those who have financial management skills, good financial planners (that invest in conservative avenues and not restaurants or cutting edge tech PE), and limit spending to 'rich' rather than 'opulent mogul.' Otherwise, the athlete better be making Lebron/Jordan money (although those two do manage their money VERY well - I am only using them as examples of people who make enough that they really don't need to be that meticulous). Anyone else ...if you don't have Lebron money, and you don't manage your investments well, in three years (after retirement) the money will be gone.
i saw that show. it reminded me of an article i had read somewhere else. This fellow who plays for the timberwolves makes a bundle but has invested, lives a regular joe lifestyle and so on, the interesting part of the article was about players who blow through cash like water. Ron artest was mentioned. Apparently he had/has a house full of dogs but they soil the carpet so much that Ron spends 5,000$ each month to have the carpet replaced. You have to wonder how else he blows through his cash
I think you are talking about the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "Broke". I watched it with my teenage son. It's free to stream if you have Amazon Prime and sometimes shows up on demand or on one of the ESPN channels. Well worth watching.